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Friday, March 15, 2013

More HP Ignorance At Atomic Ideologies

The blog Atomic Ideologies Insights has a post on a recent, cherry-picked, study which seems (to an idiot) to refute LNT.


It's been long recognized in epidemiology that when one compares a worker cohort to a general population cohort, one risks the bias of the healthy worker effect.  In fact, if you go to the study, the authors say just that!

The authors recognize the sample size was small and radon daughter exposures low (though they found a small, statistically insignificant risk increase from radon daughter products and lung cancer mortality).

The authors make one small error, they state that over 90% of the workers were followed up for at least 20 years "allowing sufficient time for occupationally induced cancers to develop".  A DNA mutation resulting from occupational exposure could result in a cancer much later than 20 years.  That's why the Japanese a-bomb study follows those exposed to a-bomb radiation (not occupational obviously) over their entire lives.

It's been long recognized in agnotology that when someone is trying to promote an anti-science agenda, the denier will cherry pick and misinterpret those studies.



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