RE: Lung cancer mortality from radon versus mortality from other<plus> Radon Health Risks

[Michael Ford <michaelford@cox-internet.com>]

Dear "Don" Students,



I've been detained by work and life but will do my best to provide some

answers to your queries:



-------Original Message----------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 01:09:37 +0000

From: "Rad health" <healthrad@HOTMAIL.COM>

Subject: RE: Lung cancer mortality from radon versus mortality from other

cancers



Michael Ford,



Regarding your email below.  From your tone, you really sound a bit agitated

about this issue. But, our guess is what really bothers you is not the

quality of the miner studies, but that the LNT is used to extrapolate risks

down from them - are we right?  But, really haven't we known for a very long

time that something in the mines was killing people. <snip>



<MSF:  You are correct.  I am agitated about this issue.  However, it's not

for the reasons you cite as I will explain below.  I disagree that some

THING in the mines was killing people.  More like MANY things.>



<snip>  ....  What you can not help but notice is a pattern among all these

studies (performed by different researchers in various parts of the world)

that show an increasing positive trend with radon exposure that was

estimated in various ways.  If it was merely some other factor like silica,

then it would also have to be in all the mines and co-correlate with radon.

<snip>



<MSF:  Only if you are willing to acknowledge that other factors and

synergisms may be at play.  The miner studies do not delve into the role of

other exposures within the mine -- including, as Philippe Duport noted,

external exposures which may be significant.>



<snip> ...  We agree that some

of the miners studies were better than others.... But, in BEIR VI we also

see a statement that says the most DIRECT way to examine the risk posed by

residential radon is to perform epidemiological studies on people who

actually live in homes rather than mines..... <snip>



<MSF:  So the jury's still out?!?  I noticed you didn't cite any of the

studies that found negative associations.  Here's my beef with the radon

studies, Don's:  Does the wealth of data that you cite justify spending a

trillion dollars? If so, what health initiatives would you say we should

divert that money from?



If indeed you maintain that lung cancer is a bad thing, and I agree, then

wouldn't it be more prudent to devote limited public resources to smoking

cessation programs that we can actually show where lives would be saved?



In the interim, spending over a trillion dollars on a hazard that has not

been definitively shown to be such is a misuse of public funds.  Pure and

simple.>



<snip> But Michael, we have read the studies.  <snip>



<MSF:  Then it apparently did not disabuse you of the notion of their

significance.  Try reading some of the studies from the Russian radon

hospitals.>



-----Original Message-----

From: Rad health [mailto:healthrad@HOTMAIL.COM]

Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 4:49 PM

To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Subject: Re: Radon Health Risks





Kai



The miner studies are not ecologic studies.  We can debate the degree of

exposure misclassification in the miner studies, but variation in radon and

progeny in mines does not make the miners studies ecologic in nature.

Individual exposure information was assigned to each individual and

information on many confounders and effect modifiers were collected in many

cases for each person.  <snip>



<MSF:  How are the "exposures" shown to be representative of what an

individual miner actually inhaled?  Also, you need to be able to address the

"migrant" nature of the miners that Philippe has drawn your attention to in

a previous post.  How about a course in representative air sampling and

internal dosimetry, guys?>



<snip>A group of us (radiation biology and epidemiology students, post docs)

had a discussion (during a journal club where we were assigned an ecologic

paper of Dr. Cohen's) about radsafe a few months ago.....   We were under

the impression that HPs really would try to urge practices that would reduce

exposure to as low as reasonably achievable.  ....  For the people

monitoring this list, I can see how they come away with the thought that HPs

have moved away from the safety of the people they are hired to protect.  In

the couple of Health Physics Society meetings I have attended, the majority

of HPs I met were not representative of the postings  on this list.  Perhaps

some of the differences on this list may be the massive hormesis postings

that drive most of the "middle of the road" HPs off the list.<snip>



<MSF:  Don, note the keyword you used above -- "reasonable".  Many of the

initiatives undertaken by governmental agencies go far beyond "reasonable"

and actually may do more harm than good.  I cited above that we were

diverting limited public monies to mitigate a "hazard" that has not

**actually** been demonstrated to be one (radon).  Take for instance the

EPA's Radionuclides in Water Rule.  While some Community Water Systems

(CWSs) throughout the US have elevated levels that need to be addressed, the

VAST majority of CWSs are fine with no remote possibility of creating health

effects due to the presence of radionuclides.  However, in the state of

Texas, the new EPA rule will now declare that 127 CWSs are no longer

suitable for human consumption (to generalize, but having the same effect).

These CWSs are now left with funding significant infrastructure changes or

finding another source for their  water.  Many of these CWSs have no money

to do either while also being faced with the need to address water-borne

pathogens (that ACTUALLY kill people) and security matters.



How about this as the Health Physicist's motto:  "First Do No Harm."  Sound

familiar?



<snip>....Respectfully, Don Smith  <snip>





V/r

Michael



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