Statistics/research suggest otherwise.
I'd doubt it. And those that don't fit are usually dismissed out of hand as biased, vested interests etc.
It's a manageable, and small, risk. Personally, I'd manage it - but that's largely because I could afford to. And there's a history of lung cancer in my family.
There'd have to be a point at which I wouldn't - where cost and other obstacles make the risk one I'd take. The thing is to be reasonably informed.
Statistics do not,. Research may becuase of confirmation bias.
The fact is if you bother to try and undtersand the staticistcs is that we are looking at a variation in a very snmall number of cases of cancer in a very small population...
See the above. What generally happens here is thet people take the LNT MODEL and project from it an excess of cancer deaths. These never ever show upo in studies though.
As with climate change what a faux model based on geovernment regulatins suggests and what is in practice measured are two different things.
But you dont live in a raidaoactive region. and you are implying that lung cancer is a genetic, not environmental risk. Make up your mind!
Very hard to be reasonably informed. Very easy to be unreasonably misinformed.
>
As I've tried to explain upthread - you need to be skilled in statistical methods *and* demographics, cancer, geology and building construction/design. And that's just what I can think of.
I'm not sure if that's badly written or I don't understand what you're saying.
Cancer - indeed, most diseases and illnesses - have a combination of causes: genetic predisposition, personal traits, environmental conditions (including your 'social environment' - class, poverty, housing etc) and luck.
Yep.
If a model is based on false assumptions then it will produce rubbish results. So your first question when faced with "Our modelling shows that ..." is to ask what assumptions are built into the model.
Punctuation added,
Better?
To be more exact the basis of government legislation about radiation is a thoroughly dicsredited notion - that cumulateive exposure to low level radiation is linearly associated with the risk of getting cancer., Both propositions are wrong.
It seems that what counts is peak short term exposure, and its highly non linear.
I'll give you a more succinct summary, suggesting that you're mistaken:
Conclusions: Collectively, though not separately, these studies show appreciable hazards from residential radon, particularly for smokers and recent ex-smokers, and indicate that it is responsible for about 2% of all deaths from cancer in Europe.
Radon in homes and risk of lung cancer: collaborative analysis of individual data from 13 European case-control studies S Darby, D Hill, A Auvinen, J M Barros-Dios, H Baysson, F Bochicchio, H Deo, R Falk, F Forastiere, M Hakama, I Heid, L Kreienbrock, M Kreuzer, F Lagarde, I Ma?kela?inen, C Muirhead, W Oberaigner, G Pershagen, A Ruano-Ravina, E Ruosteenoja, A Schaffrath Rosario, M Tirmarche, L Toma?sek, E Whitley, H-E Wichmann and R Doll BMJ 2005;330;223-; originally published online 21 Dec 2004; doi:10.1136/bmj.38308.477650.63
Well, yes. But incidence of cancer/radon is measured, and present.
I take it the 2 papers I mentioned are, in your opinion, biased and in the pay of the radon reduction industry?
On Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:58:44 +0100, RJH snipped-for-privacy@gmx.com wrote:
And as I've said up-thread Allison disputes Darby's interpretation of his [Darby's] results:
"It is important to examine carefully what Darby et al established. Their data comprised an assessment of the individual radon environment, at home and at work, over some 30 years for 7,148 individuals, who subsequently did contract lung cancer before the age of 75, and 14,208 individuals, who did not. As noted by WHO the incidence of cancer is dominated by the effect of smoking. Therefore, the question is, what is the additional risk of cancer due to radon? This question is reminiscent of the apples and pears problem discussed on page 55. In a linear picture the extra risk from radon is unrelated to smoking, whereas the result from Darby et al quoted by WHO gives the extra risk due to 100 Bq m-3 of radon as 0.1% for non-smokers but 2% for smokers. This is a failure of linearity by a factor 20 or so. Their results are shown graphically in Figure 18. These are not the actual data but the model values fitted to the data using a maximum likelihood analysis. The values depend critically on the model assumed. Since in the absence of radon the risk to smokers and non-smokers is 25:1, by modelling the risk due to radon relative to its value at zero radon, the analysis of Darby et al assumes that the added radon risk is 25 times larger for smokers than for non-smokers. This use of multiplicative relative risk is not a linear assumption. Darby et al give no reason based on cell biology for this choice of non-linearity, but, evidently, smokers have a much larger sensitivity to the radon environment than non-smokers. The risks do not just add, and so superposition, the acid test of linearity, fails.
A conclusion for public health is that smoking alone is responsible for a risk of 10% of dying of lung cancer before age
Indeed the error bars shown in Figure 18 are consistent with no dependence on radon at all, for smokers and for non-smokers. At a practical level it is plain that, in the absence of smoking, the health risk from radon is so small that it cannot be demonstrated, even in a thorough Europe-wide study. It would therefore be better for public health if the extensive resources spent on reducing radon in homes and workplaces were spent, instead, on further measures to discourage smoking."
Note the sentences:
"However, the effect of radon for non-smokers is small ? the risk of 0.1% or so should not be considered a serious concern, in the sense discussed on page 7"
and
"At a practical level it is plain that, in the absence of smoking, the health risk from radon is so small that it cannot be demonstrated, even in a thorough Europe-wide study
'Radiation and Reason', Wade Allison, pp 126-127,
Not everyone: I think the figure is that about 1000 people a year die from lung cancer caused by radon in the home in the UK.
Robert
Diagnosed as radon-related deaths (if so, how do they know?), or just calculated/estimated according to the NRPB model?
You have a reference for that?
snip
snip
Mmmm - good points, thanks. He seems to agree that smoking and radon is not a good combination.
I'd just note that your source is a book - albeit by somebody who seems to have a lot of qualifications. It's not peer reviewed.
In the past 2 years, from the top (searched by relevance, 'radon cancer'):
Nor me, mine. I've lived in Cornwall for the greater part of my life, mostly in houses built on granite, and in which the measured radon levels were significantly above the recommended action level. I don't smoke and have not the slightest concerns about developing lung cancer caused by radon.
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