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RE: Apparent anti-correlations between geographic radiation and cancer are not surprising
Kai,
I think part of the problem is that you are looking for a cause to the
cancers observed. Of all of the carcinogens, smoking remains the strongest,
but what is the next one? How about diet, which may influences colon/rectal
cancer rates? How about drinking that may affect esophageal/throat/stomach
cancers? How about hormone replacement therapy which may lead to increases
of breast cancer?
First of all, cancers occur naturally in the population. Ergo, more
people, more cancers. More people, more smoking. More people, more
drinking. Etc. The denser the population, as in and around cities, the more
cancers that will be observed. These maps are aggregates of all cancers,
and highly defined are the areas under study? To me, it is difficult to
compare a small rual county with a few small towns and a population maybe
30,000 with the NY brough of Manhattan with 3 million people. (These
numbers are probably way off, but I think you get the idea).
What I suggest is that you compare the cancer incident map with a population
density map.
-- John
John P. Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: jenday1@msn.com
The comments presented are mine and do not reflect the opinion of my
employer or spouse.
------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Kai Kaletsch [mailto:eic@shaw.ca]
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 10:21 AM
To: Jacobus, John (NIH/OD/ORS); RadSafe
Subject: Re: Apparent anti-correlations between geographic radiation and
cancer are not surprising
John,
Of course ionizing radiation could be a weak carcinogen. Then you still have
to come up with a strong carcinogen that exactly matches the observed cancer
rates. These are NOT minor statistical fluctuations. The entire eastern US
seems to have cancer rates 2 times higher than all of the prairies.
Personally, I'm not 100% convinced that this is due to a "radiation
deficiency syndrome". However, I think that the causal agent has to be more
obviously associated with geography than peoples' sugar intake. How about
humidity or a humidity related biological agent?
Whatever the agent or combination of agents is, it must reproduce this map:
http://www.dceg.cancer.gov/cgi-bin/atlas/mapview2?direct=acccwm70
or else it can't be the cause.
. . .
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