Re: query

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

Hi Bernie, group,

The EPA did a study of "radon potential" (1992?) with individual volumes of
regions of the US. They worked with USGS to use the data from the NURE program
(National Uranium Resource Evaluation?), with the data transferred from DOE to
USGS. The is primarily the aerial measurement of uranium-equivalent
(Bi/Po-214?) with a substantial amount of radiochemistry data. Outputs
included state/regional maps with pixels shaded at 0.5 pCi/g eU, with iso
lines at 1.5 and 2.5 pCi/g. (The Mass. map notes however that the granite area
in Quincy, MA goes to 33 pCi/g eU.)

This and the NCRP 1987 data were used to produce a US population distribution
by Sanquist, Kunze, Rogers and others, in about 10 groups from 170 million
people at about 2.6 mSv/y to 260,000 at >40 mSv/y. (The lung cancer rate from
the American Cancer Society is inverse to the EPA prediction. The low dose
region lung cancer rate is 390% the BEIR/EPA predicted rate of 8x10-2
effects/person-Sv, and the high dose region lung cancer rate is 14% of the
EPA. Lung cancer in the low dose region is 17 times the rate in the high dose
region.) 

[I'll add an extract from their paper below (without Figs).]

>         Is there anything more recent and authoritative for
> summarizing
> average annual radiation exposure in U.S. than NCRP-93 (published in
> 1987)? Are any of the figures given there changed by later info?
> 
> Bernard L. Cohen

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
muckerheide@mediaone.net
Radiation, Science, and Health
==============================

Drs. Gary M. Sandquist (U. Utah), Jay F.  Kunze (U. Idaho), and Vern C. Rogers
and associates in Colorado report (1997) that:

	"Many studies have been conducted to determine radon background radiation and
the influence of radon in the U.S. (NCRP 1987a,b, EPA 1992). Figure 1 provides
a frequency distribution of the total background radiation exposure to the US
population based upon NCRP and EPA background radiation and radon surveys."

	"...The current basis for projecting radiation related latent health effects
(LHE) is the linear, nonthreshold (LNT) model used by most federal regulatory
agencies.  Using a value of 8 x 10-2 LHE/person-Sv for high LET (linear energy
transfer) radiation sources, such as radon daughters (NCRP 94) yields the
projected health effects shown in Figure 2. LHEs/year range from 32,180 for
the 2.36 mSv/year population group to 848 for the group receiving ( 39.54
mSv/year; the total projected LHEs are 77,300.  As shown in Figure 2, the
variation in LHE/year-person ranges from 1.9 x 10-4 to 3.2 x 10-3, yielding a
ratio of 17.  It is informative to compare these LHE projections with actual
cancer incidence data published by the American Cancer Society (ACS 1997). 
The US states with the highest background radiation (CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY)
exhibit a mean lung cancer incidence rate of 4.4 x 10-4 which is only 14
percent of the inferred rate from the LNT model for high radiation background
areas.  On the other hand, the US states with the lowest background radiation
(ID OR WA) exhibit a mean lung cancer incidence rate of 7.3 x 10-4, which is
390 percent of the inferred rate from the LNT model for high radiation
background areas.  It is significant that not only are the LNT-projected LHEs
at considerable variance with actual health data, but that the LNT projections
scale inversely with actual observations."