Re: Radon - recent articles supporting risk at residential exposures

[Ruth Sponsler <jk5554@YAHOO.COM>]

Sharing information from the literature is what lists

should be all about.  



I have some information (not my own) to pass along

that questions harm from residential radon, although

it is not specific for any particular disease.  



The first bit of info. is two tables from:



Murray, C.J.L., C.M. Michaud, M.T. McKenna, and J.S.

Marks, "U.S. Patterns of Mortality by County and Race:

1965-1994."  Harvard Center for Population and

Development Studies, 1998. 

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/organizations/bdu/papers/usbodi/index.html



http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/organizations/bdu/usbodi/table4a.gif

50 counties with Highest Female Life Expectancies in

the U.S.



10 counties with highest life expectancies for white

females only, to eliminate racial confounding:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/organizations/bdu/usbodi/table5a.gif

[I would use this one for more meaningful

information].



====================================================

A set of Bq/m^3 measurements from Minnesota is here:



http://eande.lbl.gov/IEP/high-radon/data/minn-tbl.html

(look up Stearns, Jackson, Nobles, Rock, Carver,

Nicollet counties for highest life expectancies).



Here is a map of radon potential in the Midwest from

the USGS

http://sedwww.cr.usgs.gov:8080/radon/mwfig5.gif



Here is a map of predicted fraction of homes with

radon > 4 pCi/l:

http://eande.lbl.gov/IEP/high-radon/frac4.htm



Notice anything happening in the same places?  The

high life expectancies in the Upper Midwest could be

for a reason entirely unrelated to radon (genetics,

water hardness, socioeconomic factors, etc.), but one

can't say that the 153 Bq/m^3 [posterior geometric

mean] of radon is making people die at an early age in

Stearns County, Minn.  



Here are some state maps with some of the '10 highest'

life expectancy counties on them from Dr Philip

Price's lab. 



http://www.stat.columbia.edu/radon/counties/19.html

-Iowa

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/radon/counties/27.html -

Minnesota

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/radon/counties/38.html -

North Dakota

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/radon/counties/46.html -

South Dakota



If you want to die at an early age, you need to go

away from the high radon areas in the Upper Midwest,

Colorado, etc. and go to the 'Smokers and Coal Miners'

paradises' of Kentucky and West Virginia which have

some of the lowest white female life expectancies in

the U.S.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/organizations/bdu/usbodi/table5c.gif





Here is the relatively short-lived state of West

Virginia:

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/radon/counties/54.html

Louisiana also has a shorter than average life

expectancy, even among whites:

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/radon/counties/22.html



Also, it's winter now.  Radon tends to accumulate in

houses in winter when people keep doors and windows

shut tight against drafts.  I doubt that people in

Louisiana or even Kentucky keep their doors shut as

much as the long-living folks of Stearns County,

Minnesota do. 



By the way, I realize that all of this is fuzzy

'inductive reasoning' kind of stuff, of the sort that

one does in the preliminary stages of doing something

scientific.    



However, it's very interesting because it calls into

question a 'societal taboo' about low-level radiation,

like the Shipyard study did in a much more rigorous

fashion.  I looked at the Shipyard study (online at

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10103020)

and found very few points of methodology to question,

except that they could have measured asbestos fibers

in the work areas of non-nuclear and nuclear workers.



I certainly don't question that some uranium miners,

especially smokers, were killed by high concentrations

of radon, perhaps in combination with, diesel fumes

from equipment, in the mines.   



However, the long life expectancy patterns in the high

radon areas of the United States, the Shipyard

results, radiologist results, etc. beg for more

information of the type that could only be gathered by

overcoming a societal taboo and doing a controlled

experiment of exposure with a low level chronic

exposure to a calibrated amount of gamma.  



Did the people who did the study in the high

background area of Iran examine death records to see

how long people live there, compared to similar,lower

background regions in the same country?

 

~Ruth







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