Re: New Steve Wing Study

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 11:34 AM 2/4/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Yes, some studies are good, and do follow accepted  scientific 
>protocol. The dowside is, there is always another study that refutes 
>the evidence and conclusions reported.

I believe I've put this out on Radsafe before, but I think it bears
repeating here.

An epidemiological study that would yield a once-and-for-all, definative
answer to the low dose question would require an impossibly large number of
people. Thus, we are left with studies using smaller, more realistic
population sizes.

Howvere, let us assume, for the sake of MY argument, that low doses do NOT
cause cancers. If a series of relatively small studies were conducted over
a period of many years to examine a dose versus cancer relationship, what
would we expect to see in the results of these studies? Some would find no
corelation, others would find a small negative corelation, and some a small
positive corelation. The long term summation should show about as many
negative as positive (i.e., a symmetrical distribution about zero).

Isn't that a fair description of the history of the epi studies into low
doses of radiation?


---------
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu