Re: Interesting website

[Tom Mohaupt <tom.mohaupt@WRIGHT.EDU>]

Thanks for the submission. Articles such as this are meant to inculcate 

a belief, not inform.

The article you mention imputes that since she didn't smoke, her lung 

cancer was caused by radon. This disregards the extremely long list of 

other potential lung carcinogens to which she may have been exposed. 

Since they don't mention the radon level, I suspect it to be slightly 

above the EPA action level. Never smokers in low radon areas get lung 

cancer (and COPD) too. I'd seen these as a respiratory therapy 

technician in tidewater Virginia many years ago.

Regarding your earlier post on the rebuttal to Dr. Cohen's study, 

opponents have attacked the meaning of the Cohen's data, but they 

haven't challenged the basic data. Areas in the nation with higher radon 

levels generally have lower lung cancer. Iowa has one of the higher 

radon levels in the nation, but one of the lower lung cancer rates. Here 

are some other generalities from radon case-control studies:

- studies on never smokers tend to not express a correlation between 

radon and lung cancer.

- most of the radon studies rely on smokers to generate enough lung 

cancers to study. This boggles me because most people don't smoke, and 

even in the worst case scenario a smokers best action to lower the 

chance of lung cancer is to quit smoking.

- 65% of lung cancers in studies have radon levels below 2 pCi/l; 80% of 

lung cancers have lung cancers below 4 pCi/l; positive odd rations at 4 

pCi/l are really based on small numbers.

- Radon studies almost always use 4 pCi/l (150 Bq/m^3) and greater for 

their high dose group, even in European studies, where the action levels 

are 200 Bq/m^3 for new construction and 400 Bq/m^3 for already built 

houses. It's seems inappropriate and arbitrary for scientific studies to 

use a regulatory agency's action level as a demarcation point in their 

analyses.

- I've seen numerous ecological studies on a number of subjects and none 

have been fervently attacked as Cohen's study. Apparently, Cohen's study 

has touched a soft spot in someone's armor.

Tom



Steve Miller wrote:



>I thought this was an interesting site my sister sent me, but not sure how they know the cancer was absolutely related to radon??

>

>http://wcco.com/health/?b_start=10

>

>See radon video

>

>

>

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-- 

Thomas Mohaupt, M.S., CHP

Radiation Safety Officer

Wright State University

937-775-2169

tom.mohaupt@wright.edu







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