Re: Quality of data (cancer rates)

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

According to Dave Wiedes, the probability of a person contracting 
some form of cancer in their life-time is now 1 in 2.5 persons. That 
means a lot of people are going to have cancer, and never come in 
contact with anything remotely related to nuclear exposure of any 
kind.

Has anyone ever determined the total potential population of 
persons living within let's say, 5 to 25 miles? I venture to guess 
that this is a very small number of individuals when compared to 
the population in total. However, we have some statisticians 
making accusations based on this small sample without benefit of 
assessing the same statistics for the much larger population that 
is nowhere near these nuclear centers.

The infant mortality study, the tooth fairy study .. granted, they 
have numbers, no matter whether or not we agree with the 
methodology .. but there is no comparison to the rest of the 
population out there. This is one of the significant problems with 
these studies. What they may have concluded in their tests is that 
what data they do have may be statistically equivalent to the rest of 
the population. In other words .. there is no difference.

It's easy to use the scare word "cancer". My father, both 
grandfathers, died from cancer, and none of them were ever near a 
nuclear facility. My mother has cancer and the closest she has 
come to a nuclear center is me. They are a statistic. If they lived 
within x miles of a power plant, they would have most definitely 
been counted in these studies. They fit the conclusion desired.

Reality in data and evaluation .. that's all I ask.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Division		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
ICN Biomedicals, Inc.				E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 				                           
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue  		E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com          	          
Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Personal Website:  http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html