Re:The Cobalt-60 Accident of Ciudad Juarez (2019)
by 542354234235 on Tuesday October 27, 2020 @01:16PM
(#24909507)
> Decades later, just in our block, there have been many cases of cancer (1 renal carcinoma -- my mom, 1 testicular cancer, 1 melanoma, 3x breast cancer). Sometimes I wonder if that's the natural incidence or if it is in fact a cancer cluster caused by remnants of Cobalt-60.
That is such an interesting and scary thing about it. It is really hard, and takes a lot of careful data collection, to figure out how much cancer is "normal" everyday cancer from smoking, genetics, voodoo curses; and how much is actually "extra" cancer from possible radiation exposure. It would be especially difficult on something as small scale as a neighborhood block, since random variation of even one or two extra or fewer people unlucky enough to get “natural” cancer could completely skew an analysis attempt.
That is such an interesting and scary thing about it. It is really hard, and takes a lot of careful data collection, to figure out how much cancer is "normal" everyday cancer from smoking, genetics, voodoo curses; and how much is actually "extra" cancer from possible radiation exposure. It would be especially difficult on something as small scale as a neighborhood block, since random variation of even one or two extra or fewer people unlucky enough to get “natural” cancer could completely skew an analysis attempt.