Re: Rn, Epidemiology + thoron

["R. William Field" <bill-field@UIOWA.EDU>]

Ilia ,



I think you make good points in your email.  We must look at the

preponderance of evidence when deciding whether there is a valid risk or not

from residential radon exposure. I also agree that the pooling is important.

However the pooling that is going on right now for the American Studies

(Missouri I, Missouri-II, New Jersey, Iowa, Connecticut, S. Idaho, Utah) is

not a meta analysis.  In a meta analysis the  individual data from each

study is NOT used, but in a pooling of studies it is used.  The North

American pooling will involve thousands of cases and controls and should be

submitted for publication within years end.  Once the European studies are

published they will also be pooled with an eventual N. American and European

pooling.  This will represent the largest pooling of case control studies

ever performed.



Plans are also underway to pool the glass-based detector results from Iowa

and Missouri, and possibly the glass based results from Europe.





Regarding thoron, because of its short half life, the distance it travels is

much less.  But, if you are sleeping right next to a source, you can get a

significant exposure.  The glass based detector we used in Iowa has

specificity for thoron so we do plan to look at that down the road as we

clear some other hurdles.  We do have those measurements already performed.

One interesting note is that outdoor thoron exposure may be greater than we

thought.   I think you have really good observations.



Regards, Bill Field







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