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Dear RadSafers,
A few weeks ago, I asked if anyone could point me
to a simple table summarizing the available DATA relevant to health
effects of radiation. I think any discussion or training session about the
health effects of radiation should start with the facts and not with our
theories. From the facts, we can show how the theories come about.
Apparently, there is no simple summary of facts. I
would like to solicit everyone's help to compile this table. If we can come up
with something decent, it will have a home on my company's website ( http://www.eic.nu ) as a public service
along side the Radon Toolkit. Here is what I'm looking for:
First - just the facts with a minimal amount
of interpretation in a very short statement. For example, the ecological
radon data can be summarized as: "US counties that have high average
residential radon levels have low incidences (or is it mortality?) of lung
cancer." This is a simple observation about our world that we all should be able
to agree on, regardless of whether one is pro or anti LNT or pro or anti
hormesis or even pro or anti nuke.
Other examples of statements of fact regarding
radon would be: "Gold, uranium and tin miners who were exposed to large
amounts of radon progeny had high lung cancer mortality." or "People who have
lung cancer have higher levels of radon in their houses than the general
population."
Second - just the facts with some
more quantitative details WITHOUT introducing models, a lot of technical
jargon or drawing cause and effect conclusions. In the ecological
radon example, this might include: 1600 counties, 1000 000
measurements, independent measurements by EPA and U of P, counties with an
average radon concentration of < 37 Bq/m3 (1pCi/L) have on average x times
the lc incidence of counties where the average Rn concentration is 150
Bq/m3....
Third - a place (or places) to go for more info:
ideally, the URL of the paper. (This will be an internet based resource, so
references to papers that are not available on-line are of limited
value.)
Fourth - a short description of the main
limitations of the data set. In the above example, it would probably be that
lung cancers and radon levels are matched on a county average and not on an
individual basis.
Fifth - the range of doses that this data
gives us information about.
Please note that we are talking about the data set.
The author's conclusions and the arguments against these conclusions are not
relevant to this exercise. (If Cohen has shown LNT to be invalid is not relevant
to the description of the data set.)
Here are a few suggested ground rules:
If you don't feel comfortable posting to the list,
please Email me directly ( info@eic.nu ).
Thanking you in advance,
Kai Kaletsch
Environmental Instruments Canada Inc.
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