Re: Feasibility of Low-Dose Epi: Minimum Detectable Amount

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu


On Thu, 11 Jan 1996 dj_strom@ccmail.pnl.gov wrote:
> 
>   For common diseases, such as lung cancer, power 
> calcuations will show that you're hosed without a huge effect 
> (remember, cigarette smoking has a 10-fold effect; even Cohen 
> shows only a predicted 2-fold effect from radon, and without 
> controlling for smoking on an individual case-by-case basis, 
> you're not going to see anything).   
> - Dan Strom <dj_strom@pnl.gov>

-----I must say it bothers me greatly to have people criticize my work in 
off-hand ways. The way science works is for anyone finding fault with a 
paper to send a letter-to-the-editor of the journal where it was 
published pointing out what they object to, or at least let the author 
know about the objection and discuss it with him. I keep hearing (usually 
second or third hand) about people saying or implying that they don't 
believe my paper on testing the linear- no threshold theory, but they 
never say specifically why. I have tried everything to get people to come 
out and say why--- including offering to pay them as consultants---but 
with one trivial exception, no one has done so. Don't they believe in the 
way science operates?