Tell some people that the government has determined that they shouldn’t stick a fork into their eye and they’ll do it anyway. Then they’ll claim it actually helps them to see better. And it cured their gout. And their jock itch. And whatever else ails them. The same thing applies to exposing themselves to known carcinogens such as radon gas. In fact, not only are some people seeking out sources of radon to expose themselves to, but other people are charging them good money for the privilege of doing so. Out in Montana there’s at least two “radon health mines” where for an hourly rate you can sit in an abandoned mine and breathe in the radon filled air:
The Montana public health agency “doesn’t encourage (the mines’) use,” said Dr. Todd Damrow of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Service. “But people are free to use them.”
And they do, by the thousands every year. Many people make annual pilgrimages to the Merry Widow and the Earth Angel mines in Basin, and the Free Enterprise and Lone Tree mines in Boulder.
Owners of the mines dismiss the EPA warnings about radon as “government propaganda.”
“It’s not harmful at all,” said Patricia Lewis, owner of the Free Enterprise Mine.
The article doesn’t state what qualifications Patricia Lewis has for determining that radon gas isn’t harmful in spite of the mounds of studies that contradict her stance. Nor does the article elaborate on what reason Lewis feels the government has for spreading such propaganda about the dangers of radon exposure, but I’m sure her reasons are all based on valid scientific principles and exhaustive medical research, right? Well, she does have a nice list of links to a handful of dissenters on the dangers of radon at her website some of whom do have valid medical degrees and some of the organizations have impressive names (though some of the websites are now defunct), but compared to the amount of contradictory evidence the literal handful of counter-arguments doesn’t hold up well. It certainly doesn’t justify the laundry-list of ailments that they claim radon therapy might be helpful for:
- Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS)
- Arthritis (OA, RA, JRA etc.)
- Asthma
- Behcets
- Bursitis
- Cancer (Breast)
- Carpal Tunnel
- Chronic Pain
- Circulation
- Diabetes Type I & II
- Eczema
- Emphysema
- Fibromyalgia (FMS)
- Gout
- Hayfever
- High Blood Pressure
- Inflammation
- Lupus (SLE)
- Migraine Headaches
- Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
- Osteo Arthritis (OA)
- Post Polio Syndrome (PPS)
- Prostate (BPH)
- Psoriasis
- Rheumatoid (RA)
- Scleroderma
- Sinus
- Ulcerative Colitis
Much like the ever-popular Homeopathy or some practitioners of Chiropractic, it seems like there’s not much radon therapy isn’t effective for if you believe their website. The owner of the other mine is Dwayne Knutzen and he’s got the typical I-was-a-skeptic-at-first story that’s familiar to anyone who pays attention to these things.
“I was like everybody else,” he said. “Radon? That can’t be good for you.”
But the more he researched the health benefits of radon, he said, the more he was convinced of them.
“The only reason I bought the place,” said Knutzen, “is it’s so fascinating. You hear all these bad things. But you can’t ever find anybody who died from it. And there are all these benefits.”
It’s probably true that you’re unlikely to find many death certificates that specifically list radon as the cause of death, but then you don’t normally find death certificates that cite smoking as the cause of death either as in both cases it’s something that tends to affect you slowly over a period of time eventually resulting in lung cancer. In fact, if you’re a smoker the risk increases dramatically.
It’s estimated that around 14,000 deaths a year are associated with radon exposure, though that could range from as low as 7,000 to as high as 30,000. Ironically, we know more about the dangers of radon than we do about almost any other human carcinogen thanks to extensive epidemiological studies of thousands of underground miners carried out over more than fifty years world-wide. The charge that this is all Governmental propaganda doesn’t hold water as these studies have been repeated throughout the world.
- In 1988, a panel of world experts convened by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer unanimously agreed that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that radon causes cancer in humans and in laboratory animals (IARC, 1988). Scientific committees assembled by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS, 1988), the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP, 1987), and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement (NCRP, 1984) also have reviewed the available data and agreed that radon exposure causes human lung cancer.
Recognizing that radon is a significant public health risk, scientific and professional organizations such as the American Medical Association, the American Lung Association, and the National Medical Association have developed programs to reduce the health risks of radon. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reviewed the epidemiological data and recommended that the annual radon progeny exposure limit for the mining industry be lowered (NIOSH 1987).—A Physician’s Guide - Radon: The Health Threat with a Simple Solution
But don’t let that dissuade you, a couple of yahoos out in Montana say it’s perfectly safe and they’re willing to charge you $112 for 32 hours of exposure to prove it to you. Hey, they got tons of testimonials from other folks they’ve successfully charged as proof that it works!
A sign above the door reads “Fountain of Youth - Feel Young Again,” a reference to the mine’s radon-saturated spring water that flows from the depths of the mountain. Guests frequently brave the icy 40-degree temperature of the water with hopes of soaking away pain and swelling in joints and to improve circulation. They even splash it in their eyes to improve vision and, some say, cure cataracts. Others drink the water, hoping for relief of bladder and prostate problems, according to Knutzen.
...
“A lot of people take the mud off the wall and rub it on their skin for skin problems,” Knutzen said.
...
Similar inside to the Merry Widow, but with a more cramped, 600-foot tunnel and fewer amenities, the Earth Angel was purchased five years ago by Bill Remior. He charges $2 a day for “treatments” in his mine.A disabled World War II veteran, Remior had visited all the area’s radon mines for 20-some years before buying the Earth Angel.
“I seen what good they did me,” he said. “I figured it was the Good Lord was doing it. I’ve got a weak heart and only half a lung. But I can go good yet. It’s helped me. I seen a lot of miracles come out of here. And I never seen anything wrong.”
Probably the most hilarious comment, though, comes from Knutzen:
“Radon is a colorless, odorless gas,” said Knutzen before leading a tour of his mine. “But when you come out, you register on a Geiger counter.”
He says this like it’s a good thing. Next thing you know he’ll be telling you it’s OK if you glow in the dark as it makes reading books when the power is out a lot easier. Part of the problem, of course, is that radon is a slow killer. If it worked faster then these idiots would kill themselves off in short order and wouldn’t be around to continue to spread their stupidity to other people. It’s like that myth about a frog in a pot of water brought slowly to a boil. So long as the damage is gradual and hard to see then these idiots will continue to expose themselves to the danger. Still, I suppose that’s Darwin’s theory of natural selection at work.
Posted on 08/05/2004 at 01:17 AM 
(And I know nothing else about your site, SEB!?, or your rationality - as the chief SEB?) 
Posted on 08/07/2004 at 05:13 AM 
deadscot writes: “Yes, they were exposed to high dosages so the NCI went back and did controlled studies using low doses and still realized elevated levels of tumors compared to the control group.”
That’s not actually the case, I don’t believe. NCI published a meta-analysis in 1997 by Lubin and Boice, but did not perform an independent controlled study.
The meta-analysis took data from eight case-control studies that collectively (without the data integrated) were inconclusive. Meta-analyses such as this one have a great deal of uncertainty associated with them, due to the variation in control groups, data collection techniques, etc. This meta-analysis found that the integrated results of the eight studies correlated reasonably well with predictions of the Linear No-Threshold Theory; however, the results were not sufficiently convincing to be independently utilized as a basis for radon risk assessment in the 1998 National Academy of Sciences BEIR VI report on radon:(http://books.nap.edu/books/0309056454/html/R1.html), although the BEIR VI committee did review the 1997 Lubin/Boice paper.
The BEIR VI committee still used high dose/high dose-rate miner data to extrapolate risks in the low dose/low dose-rate region.
As noted in the report: “Since a valid risk estimate could not be derived only from the results of studies in homes, the BEIR VI committee chose to use the lung-cancer information from studies of miners, who are more heavily exposed to radon, to estimate the risks posed by radon exposures in homes.” And, “In converting radon risks from mines to homes, the committee was faced with several problems. First, most miners received radon exposures that were, on the average, many times larger than those of people in most homes; people in a few homes actually receive radon exposures similar to those of some miners. It was necessary for the committee to estimate the risks posed by exposures to radon in homes on the basis of observed lung-cancer deaths caused by higher exposures in mines.”
I am actually on the fence on this issue - far from a religious zealot.
I have been in radiation regulation for about 15 years, have never worked for industry, and have no notion that there are “magic cures” for anything. In fact, my major concern on this issue is that we, collectively, waste billions of dollars worrying ourselves with hypothetical risks that are completely negligible compared to the lifetime risk of cancer we all face.
According to the NIH, approximately 50% of all men and 37% of all women will have some incidence of cancer in their lifetime, and the mortality risk is about 23% overall. Yet, we, as a society, lose sleep, and spend billions to prevent that risk from rising to 23.01% (God, forbid!). It’s insane. Spend that money providing some minimal level of guaranteed healthcare, or meaningful rehabilitation in our prisons, or paying our teachers a decent wage.
In the case of radiation, the real conclusions from the studies thus far is that in the low dose/low dose-rate region, we do not know the extent of potential harms or benefits. Period. The best science right now says, we don’t know. And, frankly, there is just as much hypothetical harm from over-regulation as under-regulation.
Barbara