Re: Background radiation and cancer

[Dick King <king@reasoning.com>]

  Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 09:39:57 -0500 (EST)
  From: Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>
  To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
  Subject: Re: Background radiation and cancer
  Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96L.980227091406.4078F-100000@unixs2.cis.pitt.edu>


  On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, Phil Rutherford wrote:
  > 
  > This may be compared to California Cancer Registry data which gives ...
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 	cancer mortality per lifetime = 11%


	  --In 1994, the U.S. totals were 2,279,000 total deaths and 529,000
  cancer deaths, which means that 23.2% of all deaths were from cancer.

This is not a contradiction, because the 1994 statistic is weighted by the
then-current age distribution of US residents, while the 11% is weighted by the
probability of reaching that age.  For example, suppose 99% of the population
reaches 1 year of age but 50% reaches 70% reaches 50, but further suppose
that in the US now 2% of the population is between 1 and 2 years old but 3% is
between 50 and 51.  Then to get the cancer mortality per lifetimg you must
weight causes of death in the 51st year 70% as strongly as you weight second
year causes of death, but to get the 1994 statistic you will have weighted 51st
year causes od death 50% more strongly than second year causes of death.


I don't endorse the 11% factoid, but my observation is in the right direction
to explain some of the paradox.  The postwar generation ["baby boomers"] are
just about now reaching 50, where cancer is a big cause of death [they survived
young adulthood but are a tad young for heart attacks].


-dk