Re: Cardio disease citation--as promised, was Gofman

["Richard L. Hess" <lists@richardhess.com>]

At 02:40 PM 6/8/2003 -0700, you wrote:

> It is important to remember that
>
> death has a probability of 1.0.  If heart attacks are going up,
>
> deaths from cancer, accidents, etc., are going down.  If that is the
>
> case, you may want to more to Niagra to avoid cancers.  This effect
>
> could prove that low levels of ionizing radiation have a hormesis effect.
>
> Of course, the devil is in the details.


I appreciate your partially tongue-in-cheek reply. Seriously, however, if

there is an increase over other counties in New York State in heart

disease, AND IT IS SUSTAINED (I have yet to hear that it is sustained,

only oblique (non judgmental comment) references to additional coronary

care units) then, perhaps there is a cause of it.


I think some people calling for citations of papers are a bit unfair.

Every research effort has to start with a seminal paper, but it has to be

thoroughly researched and documented.


I think Lou has ruled out my "snow shoveling" cause, perhaps

you're onto something that only heart disease remains after hormesis

protects the residents against cancer and other forms of death.


However, I believe some effort should be spent looking for a smoking gun,

but that it's imperative to understand at least pathways. For example, if

the survey meter isn't showing Denver-level radiation in the homes, then

what do we have to worry about?


Also, perhaps running these statistics against other states such as

Colorado might be informative.

"Richard L. Hess" <lists@richardhess.com> wrote:

I would like to say that IF there is a substantial cluster of heart

disease, over time, it bears trying to see what the causes are. Whether

it's buried uranium or shovelling too much snow (the lake effect, you

know), we don't know yet.

I think it's important to understand first the extent of the cluster and to

see if someone who understands statistics can tell us from multiple years

if it's a trend or just a statistical blip.

As I stated in a previous message, I'd like to see 20 years or more of the

data, but I'm sure many of you are better equipped than I to analyze it.

I have been well educated by this group, but I still believe there are

things we don't know and sometimes, we can learn in unexpected places if we

listen with an open mind, but not jump to conclusions.

. . .

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com


Do you Yahoo!?
Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).