Re: Radon - recent articles supporting risk at residential exposures

[Ruth Sponsler <jk5554@YAHOO.COM>]

Yes - I considered smoking in my paper.  I used both

the raw life expectancy data and a correction for

smoking that used one of the smoking data sets that

Dr. Cohen has explained.  [Dr. Cohen's relationship

still held, no matter which smoking data set he used].

  

For the United States, uncorrected white female life

expectancy was 1.524 years longer in the 100 counties

with the highest radon levels than in the 100 counties

with the lowest radon levels.



When I corrected for smoking, white female life

expectancy was 1.435 years longer in the 100 counties

with the highest radon levels than in the 100 counties

with the lowest radon levels.



There was a statistically sigificant difference in

both cases, but it is the 'wrong way' to blame

residential radon for harm.



So, different rates of smoking do account for shorter

life expectancies in high-smoking counties, but there

is still a difference in a radon comparison when I

attempt to control for smoking.



I also tried looking at two different sets of radon

data for Minnesota.  Whether I used Dr. Price's data

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

 or Dr. Cohen's http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/  , I

still got a trend for slightly higher life

expectancies in the Minnesota counties with higher

radon levels, even if corrected for smoking.



The relationship wasn't present in all states, but I

was not able to get any statistically significant

lines that had a decrease in life expectancy with

increase in radon.  There were non-significant

negative relationships in Ohio, Virginia, and a few

other states.  On the other hand, I got several

regression lines for regions and states that had

statistically significant increases in life expectancy

with radon.  Among them were the Midwest, the

Northeast, and the individual states of Minnesota and

Pennsylvania (no, not because Three Mile Island is

there, either :-)).  Iowa had a nonsignificant

increase in life expectancy with radon, but when I

played with adjacent states and put Iowa and

Missouri's data together, I got a significant uphill

slope for LE vs. radon.  This was the case with or

without smoking correction.



I know that there are a lot of people who would like

to see the numbers be reversed, so maybe they could

blame radon for mortality rather than focus attention

on things that have been more conclusively linked to

mortality, such as fine particulate matter from diesel

and coal burning.  However, I wasn't able to find a

result that linked radon with any loss of life.



I will add that I have seen Dr. Samet's groups' work

that links fine particulate matter to mortality, and I

consider that to be a more appropriate focus for

epidemiological work than 'fishing expeditions' with

residential radon.







~Ruth Sponsler





--- John Williams <JohnWi@law.com> wrote:

> Ruth,

> 

> You have to factor in good control of smoking

> duation, rate etc.

> Is the smoking rate in the uper midwest lower than

> the national 

> average?

> 

> I have a question for you.  As Dr. Field pointed out

> before, the 

> counties around Three Mile Island have the highest

> regional radon 

> concentrations in the United States.  Should I then

> infer that the 

> radon emanates from the TMI plant?  Of course not. 

> As you pointed 

> out before, it is very hard to show cause and effect

> with ecologic 

> data.

> 

> Sent by Law  Mail





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