Re: Linear, no-threshold <hwade@aol.com>

[lambert@HAL.HAHNEMANN.EDU]

It seems to me that Dan Strom's point (see below) is valid only if indoor 
radon levels have changed over time.  Since housing construction 
techniques have changed, and these construction techniques affect indoor 
radon levels, then this point is correct.  

I have read many threads on LNT on RADSAFE and a question I have for 
the LNT bashers that quote B. Cohen's study - If this same study had 
been performed and it showed a positive correlation rather than a 
negative one, would you support it?  

I'm just a dumb operational HP, and I do not feel qualified to comment on 
the scientific validity of many of these arguments.  But, it seems 
that we are doing the same thing that the media does:  one "expert" 
says that the sun sets in the west and the other "expert" says that 
the sun sets in the east and both are presented as equally credible. 
And these are the so called "mainstream" scientists.  

PS, Thanks to D. Strom for the reminder of the tests for statistical 
causal relationships.

On Thu, 11 Jan 1996 dj_strom@ccmail.pnl.gov wrote:

> Cohen's design violates one of AB Hill's criteria (see below) for 
> inference of causation from statistical association, that 
> exposure must precede disease.  Even the judge in the TMI 
> lawsuits refused to hold TMI responsible for cancers that were 
> diagnosed prior to the accident.  Cohen's radon data were 
> collected in the mid 1980s.  His lung cancer rates are for the 
> period 1950 to 1979.  Given the minimum latent period of 10 or 20 
> years for lung cancer in human beings, perhaps even longer, Cohen 
> should have been measuring radon in the period 1910 to, say, 1969 
> for comparison with these rates.