Re: Radon Health Risks

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 1/21/02 9:32:58 AM Mountain Standard Time, Jack_Earley@RL.GOV writes:



> . They got over it by the time we covered biological
>
> effects and the relative (statistical, not real) risks, after they realized
>
> that no activity (including staying home and watching TV) is risk-free. 


Here is an insight I recently got about risk, so I will share it.  Any individual can make a decision about acceptable PERCEIVED  risk that affects only himself or herself.  However, when a risk decision affects a group, especially a large group, one has to look at realistically estimated risks in order to be fair.   For example, just because a few people PERCEIVE the risk from ionizing radiation to exceed the risk associated with joblessness, doesn't mean that this perception should be forced on an entire society.  A fair society should  look at risk estimated from frequency data.

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com