Re: Confederate States

["Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe@UCDAVIS.EDU>]

At 10:09 AM 5/9/03 -0400, BERNARD L COHEN wrote:

>	Deleting the states you specify reduces the number in the data

>base from 1601 to 1175. The results for the slope, B, are -7.2+/-0.6 for

>males and -9.1+/-0.9 for females. These differ very little from my results

>for all 1601 counties, B=-7.3 for males and B=-8.3 for females, but they

>are very discrepant from the LNT prediction, B=+7.3

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May 9, 2003

Davis, CA



Dear Bernie:



I am very grateful for your willingness to try this exercise. I thank you. 



I did not request this test to renew the Civil War, but only as a

convenience. When one views the EPA Map of Radon Zones at

http://www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/zonemap.html it becomes quite obvious that

lowest radon exposures in the continental U.S. occur, by chance,

substantially in these "Confederate" States. Also, these States tend to

have mild climates, so that housing and radon exposure issues may be quite

different from elsewhere. Since almost all present day lung cancer is cause

by use of tobacco products, it is interesting that many of these States are

leaders in production of tobacco crops, and personal observation has been

that smoking is common in these States. In addition, the high lung cancer

rates are clustered in these States according to NCI data.



It occurred to me that your results might be skewed by the low radon and

especially high lung cancer rates that are apparently correlated in these

States. That is why I suggested doing the analysis with the these States

excluded. The fact that there is virtually no change shows again the

robustness of your results. This reduces in my mind the likelihood that

your results are an artifact of the statistical weaknesses of ecological data.



Sincerely,



Otto



**********************************************

Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP

Center for Health & the Environment

(Street Address: Bldg. 3792, Old Davis Road) 

University of California, Davis, CA 95616

E-Mail: ograabe@ucdavis.edu

Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140

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