Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
When I was looking into my radon issue, I did find some legitimate discussions around stuff like the protective radon dose, such as this one:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0325122807.htm
The mechanisms describe do seam to make sense and have validity, but having monitored my radon I also know it varies wildly and even if your goal was to somehow have its protective dose in your home, there is no way to do it predictably. And the evidence it is harmful at higher doses seems pretty strong, so the current recommendations make sense, even if there are some "ya, but's" around. |
The other problem is that ScienceDaily article is from a single Worcester County study in 2008 that suggested low "typical home" radon levels might actually lower lung cancer risk. But in the face of current data, it's an outlier.
The larger pool of control study data pretty reliably shows the opposite: lung cancer risk climbs by about 8-16% per 100 Bq/m3, even at common residential levels. The data for that conclusion includes a sample size of thousands of people across Europe and North America, rather than just a single location.
Every major health and radiation protection org. still bases guidelines on that evidence and none of them have adopted the notion that in-home radon is in
any way beneficial or protective. Aside from that, Alberta has among the highest radon sampled in Canada, ~18.5% of tested homes are at or above 200 Bq/m3, and ~42% at or above 100 Bq/m3. So even if there was some validity to the whole 'but
some radon is good' theory, someone living here would be at a higher risk of having a radon level higher than is safe relative to other parts of the country. I had my last detached SFH in Garrison Green tested by Evict Radon, and it came back at 145 Bq/m3, which is the rough equivalent of 26 chest X-rays per year -- lower than Canada considers harmful, but higher than several European countries.
ScienceDaily articles are "press release" format and not peer-reviewed like something you'd find on PubMed, and they don't always update their content when newer / stronger evidence to the contrary comes to light. I will be the first to admit that there can still be useful information found from sources that aren't yet peer-reviewed like pre-prints, but I'm also the first to point out that something
is a pre-print and to use some healthy skepticism when making important decisions based on its findings.
