DO SCIENTISTS AGREE THAT RADON IS DANGEROUS TO BREATHE?
There is little disagreement that breathing the hundreds of pCi/L of radon that caused thousands of uranium miners to get fatal lung cancer is definitely harmful. Many scientists disagree with the EPA about what the level of radon should be before it should be reduced. The EPA studied the lung cancer risk of uranium miners exposed to 400 pCi/L. They assume the risk of a home owner exposed to 4 pCi/L to be one hundredth as much. Based on this assumption, the EPA guideline level of 4 pCi/L represents a much greater risk than allowed for other environmental pollutants. Other scientists have tested more than 70,000 homes across the United States. This study shows the counties with the highest average radon levels had the lowest incidence of cancer. Perhaps, breathing the low levels of radon found in the home environment, might not be harmful. Neither study fully accounts for all the different confounding factors that can cause cancer. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two the
