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Re: A question of statistical significance vs operational significance
Maury,
No offense taken. Scientist often come away with
different interpretations when presented with the same
results. In talks I give, it is apparent not everyone
in the audience is always in agreement that residential
radon is a serious health threat. This is especially
true when I give talks to real estate agents.
Regards, Bill
> Bill, I read your referenced debate with Becker. I cannot offhand suggest a nice
> neat empirical bundle defining some uncomplicated relationship such as LC as a
> function of radon exposure. Absent this dream dissertation research that would
> cause every PhD candidate to salivate profusely, I am less concerned with
> accounting for your particular findings or with accounting for Cohen's findings
> in
> terms of your experimental hypotheses rather than his; I am impressed by: 1. the
> increasingly obvious (and embarrassing) fact that there is much that we still do
> not know about smoking, and 2. radon is such a small or even possibly "negative
> threat" (can we have negative threats?) to human health that available resources
> would be more gainfully employed along other avenues. I mean no personal offense
> to you at all, but I think EPA and related govt. efforts have really gone
> astray.
>
> My impressions are very much influenced by the scientific evidence (which by now
> exceeds the anecdotal level) cited by Ted Rockwell, Tom Mohaupt, and others
> showing beneficial health effects of exposure to low level radiation. Perhaps
> there remains to be found some peculiar characteristic of radiation by radon in
> contrast with other sources of radiation. But radon is having one hard time
> living
> up to its villain role.
>
> However, I see nothing convincing yet in your data taken alone to imply a health
> threat from radon -- totally aside from Cohen's work. It just seems to me that
> your studies are attempting to isolate a tiny, tenuous experimental effect that
> just cannot rise above the error variance. It is this conclusion which for me
> suggested initially the contrast between statistical significance vs operational
> significance. If anything, I think the data are pushing us more and more in the
> direction of viewing radon as a likely cancer preventative. I see your efforts
> as
> struggling to set your teeth into an extremely elusive target. I admire your
> tenacity, but I think your data increasingly are unable to pull the load.
> Sincerely,
> Maury
> ===========================================
> epirad@mchsi.com wrote:
>
> > Maury,
> > You stated,
> > " When thinking about the increasing weight of
> > evidence favoring beneficial health effects from
> > exposure to low level radiation (such as household
> > radon), I cannot bring myself to get very concerned about
> > the EPA radon campaign."
> >
> > Maury, other than Dr. Cohen's data, which he himself
> > says does not suggest hormesis (to do so he says would
> > make his findings subject to the ecologic fallacy), can
> > you point me to any well designed study that
> > demonstrates residential radon exposure decreases lung
> > cancer risk?
> >
> > Please see this reference for my view of this issue:
> > http://www.ntp.org.uk/951-TUD.pdf
> >
> > Bill Field
> > >
> > >
> > > Bill, thanks for taking the trouble to refer me to relevant data. My
> > > impressions, however, are that you folks are suggesting with an
> > > epidemiological risk factor of 0.5, that out of an annual total lung
> > > cancer
> > > incidence of 157,400 cases, 18,600 or about 12% are attributable to
> > > radon. I
> > > don't believe those radon cases could hope to be distinguished from the
> > > noise
> > > or error variance. When thinking about the increasing weight of
> > > evidence
> > > favoring beneficial health effects from exposure to low level radiation
> > > (such
> > > as household radon), I cannot bring myself to get very concerned about
> > > the EPA
> > > radon campaign -- except for some of my darker suspicions which already
> > > have
> > > been well-fed over the years by the performance of EPA. I just cannot
> > > view
> > > radon as a threat and I suspect it might even be beneficial to us.
> > > Perhaps my
> > > ignorance, but time will tell after I'm long gone.
> > >
> > > Thanks again for your response to me.
> > > Sincerely,
> > > Maury maury@webtexas.com
> > > ================================
> > > epirad@mchsi.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > Maury,
> > > >
> > > > Our direct observations
> > > > http://www.cheec.uiowa.edu/misc/radon.html are in
> > > > agreement with the BEIR VI
> > > > (http://www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/beirvi1.html)projections
> > > > which estimate that approximately 18,600 lung cancer
> > > > deaths each year in the United States are associated
> > > > with prolonged radon progeny exposure.
> > > >
> > > > Bill Field
> > > > > Bill,
> > > > >
> > > > > Would you select an objective, reliable measure of the impact of
> > > > > cancer on human health, e.g., mortality, morbidity, longevity, etc. and
> > > > > tell me what that observation is today in perhaps the US, or the world,
> > > > > or Iowa, or whatever? Then, if we could suddenly cause all radon and its
> > > > >
> > > > > progeny to disappear completely from the earth while all other
> > > > > conditions remain unchanged, what do you see in any hard data, or
> > > > > believe would be the observed effect or change in that selected cancer
> > > > > measurement in, say, 20 years or so?
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > > Maury Siskel maury@webtexas.com
> > >
> > > ------------------
> > > It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the
> > > freedom to demonstrate. Charles M. Province
> > > ************************************************************************
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> > >
>
> --
> It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the
> freedom to demonstrate. Charles M. Province
>
>
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