Re: Radon and never-smokers in Sweden

["Jim Nelson" <nelsonjima@HOTMAIL.COM>]

Karl,



I am not sure you can generalize about what you found in Germany to the rest 

of the world.  The stigma attached to smoking varies by country and within a 

country (really by the individual).  If there really was this under 

reporting, it would affect both people in a study that have lung cancer and 

do not have lung cancer. So with all that noise you would see no 

association.  The author in a recent debate I read in my latest issue of 

Radiation Protection Dosimetry addressed some of these issues (Radiat. Prot. 

Dosim. 95(1),pp 75-81, 2001).  They pointed out that to find an association 

between radon and lung cancer attributable to erroneous recall of smoking, 

there would have to be a correlation between the poor recall and radon 

concentratiosn. The author pointed out that since most of the people in a 

study do not know their radon exposure at the time they are interviewed for 

their smoking history, this assertation that the effect is due to poor 

recall of smoking is very unlikely.  Have you read the article?



Has your study been published in a scentific journal yet?



Jim Nelson















>From: precura.martin@t-online.de (Dr. Karl Martin)

>To: nelsonjima@hotmail.com

>CC: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu, conrady@plasmaphotonics.de, 

>juergen.lembcke@notghi.com

>Subject: Radon and never-smokers in Sweden

>Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 17:57:51 +0200

>

>Dear Jim,

>

>I'm not saying the subjects lied. The recall bias I mentioned is an attempt 

>to

>explain the discrepancies in Table 6 of the Swedish study between subjects

>exposed to ETS and not exposed. The authors gave no explanation for this

>important result.

>

>My atttempt is based on results from the Schneeberg Study when the smoking 

>habit

>was validated and results from an ongoing uranium miners study. When 

>comparing

>the self-reported smoking status of lung cancer cases prior to diagnosis 

>(data

>from medical records when x-rayed for lung diseases and tuberculosis) and 

>at

>time of diagnosis (interviewed in the lung cancer registry) resulted in an

>obvious tendency by lung cancer cases to minimise and even deny their 

>smoking

>behaviour. This could apply to never-smokers from the Swedish study too. It 

>is

>humane. When being certain to include never-smokers in your study you 

>cannot

>rely on the self-reported smoking history at time of diagnosis for lung 

>cancer.

>

>People with lifestyle related diseases tend to minimise their own 

>contribution

>or try to put the blame on other reasons. You can find extensive literatur 

>about

>this, try AJE or ask your physician.

>

>As BEIR VI stated, the lung cancer risk from smoking amounts to 10-20 and 

>that

>from indoor radon to 0,2-0,3 only. Risk estimations for lung cancer due to

>indoor radon react therefore very sensitive to misspecifications of 

>cigarettes

>smoked. Even with a misspecification of one cigarette per day only over 

>about 30

>years the relative error comprises 13%.

>

>Karl

>

>================================================

>PreCura Institute for Preventive Medicine

>Dr. Karl Martin

>Auguststraße 2

>D-16321 Schönow

>FON/FAX 0049 3338 3221

>e-mail: precura.martin@t-online.de

>=================================================

>



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