Re: Risks of low level radiation - New Scientist Article

["Fritz A. Seiler" <faseiler@NMIA.COM>]

Jerry,



Joe Alvarez and I have shown that the influence of "some unknown

cross-level  confounding relationship" is irrelevant for a risk assessment.

See our paper:

Seiler, F.A., and J.L. Alvarez, "Is the' Ecological Fallacy' a Fallacy?" Hum.

Ecol.  Risk  Assess.  6, 921-941 (2000).

Sometimes you wonder what the purpose of epidemiology is really supposed to be.

Is it a science for its own sake or is it a science that is supposed to provide

some basic information for a risk assessment or what? All the discussions about

Bernie's data seem intent on finding a simon-pure cause-effect relationship for

radon (a marginal radon risk!) but is that what we need? I can't really

understand what purpose this is supposed to serve.  When we do a risk assessment

for sub-populations of the US population we need to take into account that 25%

of us do smoke and that the smoking-radon interaction is responsible for most of

the lung cancers, and that is a knowledge that Bernie's data can provide

directly with a minimum of random and systematic errors.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the calculation of the risk for a population

with a different fraction of smokers is going to drown in a flood of error

evaluations.  So, can anybody tell me what the purpose of  an unconfounded

epidemiology study for radon is?



Have a good weekend, all



Fritz



Jerry Cohen wrote or rather quoted:



> >"Lubin's mathematical analysis that shows that it is

> > theoretically possible that the non-LNT slope observed by Prof. Cohen may

> > be in error without limit as a result of some unknown cross-level

> > confounding relationship"



--



 " The American Republic will endure until the day Congress

 discovers that it can bribe the Public with the Public's money."

                                       Alexis de Tocqueville

                                       Democracy in America



***************************



Fritz A. Seiler, Ph.D.

Sigma Five Consulting

P.O. Box 1709

Los Lunas, NM 87031, USA

Tel.    505-866-5193

Fax.    505-866-5197

e-mail: faseiler@nmia.com



***************************





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