Re: Lung cancer mortality from radon versus mortality from other<plus>Radon...

[hflong@postoffice.pacbell.net]

Dons, et al,

I like your advice about risks: 1, no smoking, 2, paint over asbestos (don't remove it) and 3, no action on radon ("depending on level").



It is good to see points of agreement. It shows you are smart, in that you think like me there. (Smile!) So, I wonder why you accept models and

statistical adjustment (extrapolation from other studies) instead of matching controls for smoking in the Iowa study of lung cancer.



Mea culpa! I, too, extrapolated (estimated beyond data at hand) with "Iowa women - 1% outlier of USA lung cancer mortality, 1/radon." What IS in

Cohen's data is that Iowa women had only  0.3 standard deviations of inverse association - lung cancer mortality vs radon, whereas p< 0.001 chance

(many SDs) for whole USA (minus mobile CA, FL, AZ). So Iowa is different, clouding inference to the USA.



We need placebo studies - identical controls!



Howard Long



Rad health wrote:



> Ruth,

>

> If they smoked, I would say that is a greater risk than all of the potential

> hazards below you bring up.

>

> If the asbestos was not pliable, I would have left it in place.  The

> decision between the radon and the wiring would depend on the concentrations

> of the radon and how faulty the wiring is.  Also, at this point, I see no

> way they could install "radon barriers".  That is usually only done for new

> construction.

>

> Don

>

> >

> >I would like to inject a real-life "risk-based" decision into this

> >decision.

> >This is a true story:

> >

> >Friends of ours -- a family that includes small children -- just purchased

> >a

> >house.  The house has aluminum wiring, painted asbestos "popcorn" ceilings,

> >and no particular radon mitigation.  They just spent quite a bit on

> >asbestos

> >removal, and can't immediately afford both replacement of the wiring and

> >radon barriers.  They asked me (and this is a bit of oversimplification)

> >which I thought they should do.  My answer was unhesitating, and I told

> >them

> >not only is the aluminum wiring a very real fire hazard, while the radon

> >hazard is putative at best, but had they had a fire, they might have wished

> >to have left the asbestos in place and just added some coats of paint.

> >

> >Now I would like to ask the folks who base their contentions on the Iowa

> >study: if you  only could afford to mitigate one risk, which would you

> >mitigate: radon, asbestos in the ceiling, aluminum wiring in the walls?

> >This

> >is a real question and I look forward to the answers.

> >

> >Ruth

> >

> >Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

> >ruthweiner@aol.com

>

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