To Bill Field and
Radsafe,
Dr. Puskin has contributed an
interesting and valuable paper addressing “Cohen’s discrepancy,” i.e., Cohen’s
negative county level association between radon and lung cancer. Puskin shows
that respiratory system cancers correlate negatively with radon, but other
cancers do not. He then assumes that this is due to smoking (i.e., the smoke
causes respiratory system cancers but not other cancers). He then implies
that, for some reason, radon is higher in counties where smoking is lower. He
offers no data demonstrating why this would be so.
I can think of no reason why radon
would be robustly and consistently higher in counties where smoking is lower.
To me, this is an implausible association.
Bill Field’s implication that Dr.
Puskin has explained Dr. Cohen’s discrepancy and deserves the award is
premature.
Best regards,
Wes
Wesley R. Van Pelt, PhD, CIH,
CHP
Wesley R. Van Pelt Associates,
Inc.
http://home.att.net/~wesvanpelt/Radiation.html
wesvanpelt@att.net
> Carl,
>
> Since Dr. Puskin is a federal employee, he likely
can not accept a reward
> offer. However, a donation to the American
Cancer Society could be made
> in
> his name.
>
> Regards, Bill Field
> epirad@mchsi.com