Letter to the editor “Radiation and environmental biophysics”

Abstract

In their recent publication ‘‘Sex ratio at birth: scenario from normal- and high-level natural radiation areas of Kerala coast in south-west India,’’ Koya et al. (2015) reported that a comparison of the sex ratio at birth (SRB; technically sex odds: SO) among live newborns similar in high-level (SRB 1.050) and normal-level radiation areas (SRB 1.041) was not statistically significantly different. However, even a 1 % difference in SRB may be of consequence especially in large populations on national or global scales. We reanalyzed the data in this study. Although the SRB disparity noted by Koya et al. (2015) lacks significance in the rigorous statistical sense, it is nonetheless consistent with our previous Chernobyl-related findings. Therefore, this paper corroborates recent positive observations of increased SRB after exposure to environmental radiation