Re: Lung cancer mortality from radon versus mortality from other <plus> Radon...

["Rad health" <healthrad@HOTMAIL.COM>]

Ruth,



If they smoked, I would say that is a greater risk than all of the potential 

hazards below you bring up.



If the asbestos was not pliable, I would have left it in place.  The 

decision between the radon and the wiring would depend on the concentrations 

of the radon and how faulty the wiring is.  Also, at this point, I see no 

way they could install "radon barriers".  That is usually only done for new 

construction.



Don





>

>I would like to inject a real-life "risk-based" decision into this 

>decision.

>This is a true story:

>

>Friends of ours -- a family that includes small children -- just purchased 

>a

>house.  The house has aluminum wiring, painted asbestos "popcorn" ceilings,

>and no particular radon mitigation.  They just spent quite a bit on 

>asbestos

>removal, and can't immediately afford both replacement of the wiring and

>radon barriers.  They asked me (and this is a bit of oversimplification)

>which I thought they should do.  My answer was unhesitating, and I told 

>them

>not only is the aluminum wiring a very real fire hazard, while the radon

>hazard is putative at best, but had they had a fire, they might have wished

>to have left the asbestos in place and just added some coats of paint.

>

>Now I would like to ask the folks who base their contentions on the Iowa

>study: if you  only could afford to mitigate one risk, which would you

>mitigate: radon, asbestos in the ceiling, aluminum wiring in the walls?  

>This

>is a real question and I look forward to the answers.

>

>Ruth

>

>Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

>ruthweiner@aol.com





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