Probabilistic causality and radiogenic cancers

A review and scrutiny of the literature on probability and probabilistic causality shows that it is possible under certain assumptions to estimate the probability that a certain type of cancer diagnosed in an individual exposed to radiation prior to diagnosis was caused by this exposure. Diagnosis of this causal relationship like diagnosis of any disease - malignant or not - requires always some subjective judgments by the diagnostician. It is, therefore, illusory to believe that tables based on actuarial data can provide objective estimates of the chance that a cancer diagnosed in an individual is radiogenic. It is argued that such tables can only provide a base from which the diagnostician(s) deviate in one direction or the other according to his (their) individual (consensual) judgment. Acceptance of a physician's diagnostic judgment by patients is commonplace. Similar widespread acceptance of expert judgment by claimants in radiation compensation cases does presently not exist. Judicious use of the present radioepidemiological tables prepared by the Working Group of the National Institutes of Health or of updated future versions of similar tables may improve the situation. 20 references