[ RadSafe ] Fwd: Study Links Residential Radon Exposure to Hematologic Cancers in Women

[Chris Alston]

Brad et al.

That was my first thought.  Without estimates of the actual amounts of
radon, there's no way to correlate cases with doses.  Even in regions
notorious for high residential radon, one house may have levels at the
national norm, while the one next door has enough that its
inhabitants' garments can set off portal monitors.  In fact, the
authors carefully note that they've found an *association*.

I suspect that such papers are symptomatic of the publish-or-perish
syndrome.  And, as you say, they call very appropriately for further
study.  That research would be quite time-consuming, I should think.

Cheers
ca
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brad Keck <bradkeck at mac.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 4:17 PM
Roy,
In addition, they make no argument that the 1982 county data is
representative of the actual cases observed - that the actual cancer
cases come from a house that is actually high (or low) in radon.

To their credit, they recognize that this result would need to be
confirmed independently (and hopefully with much better radon data)
before being acted upon….