Re: A good Hormetic Effect of Background Radiation is shown in a1973 AEC report.

[Bernard Cohen <blc+@PITT.EDU>]

 It is unfortunate that for some unforeseen reason the authors of the 

following report did not publish the results in a scientific journal:



> Frigerio, N.A., Eckerman, K.F. and Stowe, R.S. (1973) Carcinogenic

> Hazard from Low-Level, Low-Rate Radiation, Part I, Rep. ANL/ES-26.

> Argonne Nat. Lab

>     It shows that the six states with the highest background have a 

> cancer death rate 15% lower than the average for all the states. The 

> statistical certainty appears to be better than about 5 std dev. The 

> authors obviously planned to publish their results as reference #24 in 

> their report is to themselves as "to be published".  



    ----We should recognize the severe limitations of this work. It 

says, essentially, that the Rocky Mountain states which have high 

background radiation have low cancer rates, and the Gulf Plain states 

which have low background radiation have high cancer rates. But cancer 

rates can be impacted by many factors other than radiation -- these 

would be called confounding factors. Some examples would be age of 

population, pollution levels, socioeconomic factors (poor people have 

higher cancer rates than the well-to-do), ethnicity of population, 

smoking habits, diet, weather, climate, etc. Cancer rates vary from 17% 

in Rocky Mountain states to 23% in New England, whereas LNT predicts 

that only about 1-2% of all cancers are caused by background radiation, 

so everyone must agree that these other factors must be more important 

than radiation.

    Recognizing these problems played a big role in the design of my 

studies of radon vs lung cancer in U.S. counties. I gave very extesive 

treatment to all of the above potential confounding factors and numerous 

others. I also had the starting advantage that LNT predicts that 10% of 

all lung cancers are due to radon..



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

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/