Re: Radon Health Risks

["Rad health" <healthrad@HOTMAIL.COM>]

Dr. Cohen,



I read that, but I also read a paper by Field and Kross that showed there 

were precision problems with your detectors. Am J Public Health 1990 

Aug;80(8):926-30



Field comparison of several commercially available radon detectors.



Field RW, Kross BC.



University of Iowa, Institute of Agricultural Medicine and Occupational 

Health, Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health, Iowa 

City 52242.



To determine the accuracy and precision of commercially available radon 

detectors in a field setting, 15 detectors from six companies were exposed 

to radon and compared to a reference radon level. The detectors from 

companies that had already passed National Radon Measurement Proficiency 

Program testing had better precision and accuracy than those detectors 

awaiting proficiency testing. Charcoal adsorption detectors and diffusion 

barrier charcoal adsorption detectors performed very well, and the latter 

detectors displayed excellent time averaging ability. Alternatively, 

(Cohen's) charcoal liquid scintillation detectors exhibited acceptable 

accuracy but poor precision, and bare alpha registration detectors showed 

both poor accuracy and precision. The mean radon level reported by the bare 

alpha registration detectors was 68 percent lower than the radon reference 

level.







>

>	--I assume that this is meant to be an attack on my data base of

>average radon levels in U.S. counties. I would be glad to discuss this

>matter if you will first read the very extensive justification of my

>procedures given in my published papers. They include correlation with

>results of several different independent studies, treatment of outliers in

>the data, a pilot study, stratification of data on number of

>measurements, etc.

>





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