Re: Apparent anti-correlations between geographic radiation and cancer are no...

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 1/2/03 2:56:01 PM Mountain Standard Time, eic@shaw.ca writes:


> I believe all values shown are per 100 000 people. (



It was a little hard to read, but you are right.  However:


1.  A map of cancer mortality by itself is meaningless.  With latency periods of ten years or more, where a person dies of cancer may be totally unrelated to where he or she was exposed to a carcinogen (my personal experience is that basal cell skin cancers -- almost never fatal -- emerge about 15 years after the exposure to intense sunlight for long periods of time).

2.  What is the ratio of cancer deaths to total deaths?  How are total deaths distributed?  

3.  nothing about the map indicates "excess" vs/. "expected" cancer deaths.


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com