[ RadSafe ] Response to message from niton@mchsi.com

[Bernard Cohen]

	In response to the message reproduced below from Niton,
I don't understand why some people ignore my response to its line of reasoning which was proposed by Puskin. I have shown in 

 "The Puskin observation on smoking as a confounder in ecological correlations of cancer mortality rates with average county radon levels, Health Phys 86:203-204;2004. (This is posted as item #15 on my web site  www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc )


that there is no *possible* set of smoking data that would change the Puskin observation described below by Niton. Thus there can be no possible justification for his conclusion below that deficiencies in my data on smoking can explain my results.
	Furthermore, my papers go to great lengths to show that no remotely credible correlations between smoking prevalence and radon exposures can explain my data -- for a summary see Sec. 4.2 of item #7 on my web site www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc


from: niton at mchsi.com:

. > strongly negative correlations are found for cancers strongly linked to 

>> cigarette smoking, weaker negative correlations are found for cancers 
>> moderately increased by smoking, whereas no such correlation is found for 
>> cancers not linked to smoking. The results indicate that the negative trend 
>> previously reported for lung cancer can be largely accounted for by a negative 
>> correlation between smoking and radon levels across counties. Hence, the 
>> observed ecological correlation provides no substantial evidence for a 
>> protective effect of low level radon exposure.
>  
>