Many homeowners are unaware of the level of radon within their home. In fact most homeowners probably assume the levels are fine. Maybe they don’t even know what radon gas is and why people are fussing about it all of a sudden. If it were a problem you would’ve known about it already, right?
Of course we’d love to think that we know about these toxic things in our homes before they cause any damage, but unfortunately that’s not been the case for the hundreds of thousands, even millions who have been killed by radon induced lung cancer. This gas is estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to cause about 15 percent of lung cancer cases, which the Environmental Protection Agency estimates to be about 20,000 per year.
There is good news amidst this quite scary information: radon testing is fast and easy and your home’s gas levels can be significantly reduced through mitigation and maintained for the rest of your time living in the home.
Radon And The Nuclear Bomb
As though the information about this gas isn’t bad enough already– it’s completely unnoticeable to humans and causes lung cancer– it also quite easily relates to the nuclear bomb. In fact, it’s one in the same. Here’s how.
Radon is the result of uranium decay in soil. Once this process begins, polonium and radium get released into the air, which produces high toxicity levels.
Similarly, the nuclear bomb used during the Cold War, utilized uranium. Thus, once the bomb destroyed an area of land and the uranium decayed, the radon gas was produced in high enough levels that people suffered from radiation.
Although the average natural outdoor level of radon is about.4 pCi/L (picocuries per liter,) when unnaturally produced in the form of a nuclear bomb the levels of toxicity in an area are understandably heightened.
Radon and The X-Ray
Did you know that the radon in your home potentially creates more radiation than a hospital chest x-ray? Look at this.
As a group A carcinogen, this gas is very harmful and is the cause of increased levels of radiation.
The radiation in a 4.0 pCi/L level of radon is equal to the radiation from 100 chest x-rays. The number of chest x-rays permitted by most hospitals is what makes that number all the more interesting. Most hospitals actually only allow people to have four chest x-rays each year. That’s.16 pCi/L per x-ray and.64 pCi/L a year. In other words, can you understand why the WHO has their action level at 2.7 pCi/L?
The effects of radon are far higher than even the effects of chest x-rays, which should make any homeowner quick to have testing and mitigation.
