Re: 700 cancer cases caused by X-rays

[Raymond A Hoover <ray2hoover@yahoo.com>]

As I remember things, there was a Baltimore-Washington Chapter meeting about 2or 3 months after the Watras house was discovered and the area was searched for contaminated houses (Maggie Reilly ran the operation, or at least I remember her as being in charge of the search).  The main topic at that meeting was a panel discussion of radon.  The thing I most remember about the meeting was a fellow from the EPA stating that 4 pCi/l was not going to be changed no matter what, because the EPA was to afraid of the law suits that might result.  

 

The point I wish to make here was that the 4 pCi/l level had already been set.  I ran into Maggie a few years later and one of the things she asked me was if I remembered who had set the level at 4 pCi/l (I had been up there helping with the search).  



Tom Mohaupt <tom.mohaupt@WRIGHT.EDU> wrote:

Ruth,

I'm glad you brought up the RAH-RAH Radon article in the last HPS 

newsletter, particularly for anyone who has tried to uncover where the 

action level of 4 pCi/L came from. If you're interested, you may want to 

read "Radon's Deadly Daughters: Science, Environmental Policy, and 

Politics of Risk" by M. Edelstein and W. Makofske, (Rowman & 

Littlefield, 1998). They present a summary of the development and 

evolution of radon policy. I must admit that my interpretation of the 

facts they provide differ strongly from the author's interpretations. 

Excellent book if you're interested in radon.



Those of you who've read the radon article in the newsletter will recall 

that the last section dealt with homeowners paying for testing and 

mitigation. This is where the radon policy began. Back in the 

mid-1970's, there were two agencies seeking to oversee radon mitigation, 

the EPA and the DOE. The radon experience had included one house in PA 

(the book gives names & places of this famous incident) having 22 WL 

(about 4400 pCi/L) of radon that cost $40,000 to mitigate. The 

homeowner's employer covered the cost. Of course other members of the 

community wanted their house tested and mitigated. Mitigation costs were 

brought down to about $20,000 per house, paid for by the government. The 

DOE wanted to set the action level at 20 pCi/L (a small percentage of 

houses). The EPA wanted to set the limit at 4 pCi/L (a much, much larger 

percentage). Some Congressmen thought that every house in the U.S. 

should be at outdoor levels. The question was how, "How does the U.S. 

government pay for the program?" Notice that no health effects data for 

residential radon were available. All hypotheses were based on mine 

data. Funny how some things never change. [Note: The guy whose house had 

4400 pCi/L, became a radon mitigator and was apparently still making a 

comfortable living at the publication of the above mentioned book.]

{The rest is my conjecture from occurrances as published.}

DOE was not sure of the cost of mitigating houses above 20 pCi/L, but 

$20,000 per house seemed reasonable from experience. That's an awfully 

steep cost for any homeowner to bear. By making the level 4 pCi/L as the 

EPA suggested enough houses would need mitigating to allow radon 

businesses to flourish. Hence, a house with 5 pCi/L paying $2000 for 

mitigation subsidizes the house with 20 pCi/L by helping to pay for the 

business infrastructure. The beauty of the plan is that the homeowner 

pays for mitigation, not the governement. All the EPA has to do is drum 

up business for the radon companies. Remember the radon ads of the early 

1980's - children turning into skeltons, grossly exaggerated lung cancer 

threats. Remember the first radon guide that used projected radon lung 

cancer risk for smokers to all persons, even never smokers. The impetus 

for the program comes during house buying transactions.

My personal opinion is that the EPA was way too bold in their radon 

policy. They can't afford for any data to suggest that radon is NOT the 

second leading cause of cancer. If there is a threshold for lung cancer 

say at 10 or 20 pCi/L, people who've mitigated their houses may file 

suit. A scary thought no matter what your point of view is.

My observations:

In epidemiological data, about 60-65% of the lung cancer cases have 

radon levels less than 2 pCi/L. About 85% of the cases have radon levels 

less than 4 pCi/L. The studies almost always use 4 Ci/L and above for 

the uppermost category, so how many (or percentage) lung cancers occur 

in persons exposed to 10 pCi/L or 20 pCi/L and above cannot be determined.

In summary (sorry for the long posting)

When the EPA article mentioned homeowners paying for their radon 

mitigation, many of you probably didn't realize that the concept had a 

long history.

Tom

My observations and thoughts...



RuthWeiner@AOL.COM wrote:



>Absolutely! And the same is true for the lead article in the last Health Physics Newsletter -- Dr. Puskin and EPA's attribution of all those LCFs to radon.

>

>Ruth

>

> 

>



-- 

Thomas Mohaupt, M.S., CHP

Radiation Safety Officer

Wright State University

937-775-2169

tom.mohaupt@wright.edu







************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/





---------------------------------

Do you Yahoo!?

Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!