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Re: Other NIEHS Radon studies (radon and larynx, gastric cancer, and leukemia)
Don and Radsfers,
Their is no question that U miners who received a high Rn exposure have a
higher risk of lung cancer. Nobody has any doubt about that. The only
important point, from a public health viewpoint, is the shape of
the"dose"-effect curve at low exposures, say between 10 and 70 or so WLM,
with all-inclusive, realistic error bars in both X and Y directions, and
that all potential confounders have been accounted for and taken into
account. So far, error bars seem to be for Poisson statistics only on
number of cancer cases (perception of a non-epidemiologist). If true, this
gives a false sense of accuracy, even when error bars are large (witness
incompatible, exclusive error bars among the eleven-cohort joint analysis).
How wide would be the error bars with ALL sources of error and uncertainty ?
Question 1 : Is my perception that Poisson stats alone are used to calculate
error bars wrong ?
Question 2 : What prevents including ALL sources of errors in error bars ?
In any other scientific domain, graphs with error bars that do not include
ALL sources of error and uncertainty would be frowned upon, and possibly
rejected.
References on the rationale for using Poisson stats only (if my perception
is not mistaken), would be appreciated.
Note: Having worked and lived for about a decade and a half among U miners
in two continents, I suspect that the combination of smoking and drinking
(wine and other pleasant alcoholic things, in respectable quantities) might
be nice confounder for mouth, larynx, stomach, liver - why not lung also,
the interface between alcohol in blood and air) and other cancers.
Philippe Duport
International Centre for Low Dose Radiation Research
University of Ottawa
555 King Edward Ave.
Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1N 6N5
Tel: (613) 562 5800, ext. 1270
pduport@uottawa.ca
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rad health" <healthrad@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 10:38 PM
Subject: Other NIEHS Radon studies (radon and larynx, gastric cancer, and
leukemia)
>
>
> http://www.niehs.nih.gov/external/fellows/epidemio.htm
>
> The NIEHS radon study was motivated by widespread interest in the
> possibility that indoor radon exposure is a major cause of lung cancer in
> the US. The study, based in Utah and Connecticut, involves 1,474 lung
cancer
> patients and 1,811 population controls for whom were obtained detailed
> exposure histories and measured radon levels in current and past homes.
Data
> collection is complete, and evaluation of statistical methods for
estimating
> lifetime exposure in the face of inevitable missing data (some past homes
> could not be measured) and identifying factors that predict radon levels
in
> homes is underway.
>
> Another study is of cancer incidence in a cohort of 18,000 Czech uranium
> miners who are exposed to radon. Preliminary results suggest increased
risk
> for cancers in addition to lung cancer, including cancer of the larynx,
> gastric cancer, and leukemia.
>
> http://www.dceg.cancer.gov/cgi-bin/pubSearch.pl?EntryLimit=0&branch=OEB
>
> http://www.cheec.uiowa.edu/misc/rd_review.pdf
>
> Don
>
>
>
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