Re: Risks of low level radiation - New Scientist Article

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@MEDIAONE.NET>]

> From: BERNARD L COHEN <blc+@PITT.EDU>



> On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Jim Nelson wrote:

> 

>> We show that Cohen's erroneous assumptions concerning occupancy

>> rates and smoking effects result in the use of the wrong model to test the

>> linear no-threshold theory. Because of these assumptions, the ecologic

>> confounding and cross level bias associated with Cohen's model invalidate

>> his findings.

> 

> --My response to this was given in Health Phys. 75:23-28;1998



Since it doesn't provide any scientific content, it hardly needs a response.



> Furthermore, when more recent Iowa county lung cancer

>> incidence rates are regressed on Cohen's mean radon levels, the reported

>> large negative associations between radon exposure and lung cancer are no

>> longer obtained.

> 

> --My response to this was given in Health Phys. 76:440;1999 near

> the end of the paper. My negative association for Iowa was not large, less

> than one standard deviation.



This would also seem to be a factor of the poor stratification of radon by

geographic area in Iowa.



> It is also not clear to me why the recent

> incidence rates are more reliable than the official mortality rates that I

> used, reported by National Center for Health Statistics.

> 

> --You don't seem to read my responses to the criticisms you cite.

> If you don't agree with my responses, you should at least cite them and

> say why you don't agree. Ignoring them is surely not in keeping with

> recognized scientific procedures



Well, Bernie, responding to bureaucratic true believers is just like

responding to Norm Cohen, except as "feeders" at the gov't trough, they are

not just gadflies. But they make the Norm Cohen's possible, and use them

politically to defend the "public interest" to defraud the public for the

LNT bureaucracy/funding.



Regards, Jim



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