Saturday, December 10, 2011

Enviro-scams, Episode LXXXIV: The next person to die from Radon will be the first

Responding to "The Radon Business is a Scam", an anonymous commenter observes:

...As an expert on radiation effects, and a research career that spans over 35 years, I can assert that Radon detectors (and the level set as "safe" by the EPA) are pseudo-science.

The human body contains enough potassium-40 (a radioactive isotope) to register more than 4 pCi! So far as I know, the K-40 in our bodies has never been linked to an increased rate of cancer. One only need sit or sleep beside one of the detectors for most of the "collection" period to register positive for Radon.

Meanwhile, how can a gas which is much, much heavier than air "rise" up through a home? Heck, Radon is even heavier than ALL commonly occurring metals, including Gold! It can only FALL out of the cracks in basement walls (if those walls contain or are near a high concentration of Uranium), where any Radon will turn to Lead within a few weeks. It must constantly be "replenished" by some source (that source is Uranium).

If you had a true Radon problem in your basement, you'd also have a problem with Lead on your basement floor, and Uranium in-or-behind your basement walls. There's no need for a Radon detector at all, and ventilation systems will do almost NOTHING to mitigate any problem with Radon -- it is too heavy to ventilate.

The entire Radon mitigation industry is a scam perpetrated by environmental activists pushing an agenda to grow the power of the federal government to control our environment, and who are ignorant about physical science.

Cancer is "linked" to a great number of factors using statistics. When I studied advanced probability & statistics, I was taught that figures don't lie, but that liars do it with figures. This is the case for "Radon"-induced cancer.

The EPA justifies the Radon scam by claiming that up to 21,000 people die annually from Radon-related lung cancer.

The problem is, the EPA's study failed to separate... wait for it... smokers from non-smokers.

Of course, anyone with an ounce of sense would ask: why do I have to spend $1,000 to "fix" a problem that no one can see, that no one can smell, has never hurt a single person, and apparently didn't exist until 1984?

Oh, right. It's for the children.


4 comments:

Doom said...

Beyond, don't you find it funny that, being that smoking is so bad for you that they don't separate it? My guess it would unhinge even much of that lie.

Now I chew. But after being battered for years by doctors and my dentist to quit, now I just ask them to show me the numbers. They hand me a brain-dead sympathy pamphlet and I gaze through it as if reading it, looking for the numbers. When I don't, obviously, find them, I hand the pamphlet back and suggest they do more homework.

What, does tobacco make mass mind control fail?

The_Bad said...

Is smoking that bad for you? Is there a "science-settled" link between smoking and cancer?

I have been a smoker for about 25 years. No cancer. My pulse and BP are the same as they were when I was a teenager and have never varied in my life.

My grandfather was a heavy smoker all of his life. He died after his 90th birthday ... not cancer.

I'm not saying that smoking doesn't cause cancer. I'm just not convinced that it does either. Seriously - when did any government agency present anything other than their declaration that they have determined an industry (a big one) was bad for you and should be heavily taxed and regulated?

Veeshir said...

Remember, Green Science is neither.

Anonymous said...

I've been telling people it's a scam for years. Having slept for many years within 100 ft of an operating reactor core on a submarine gives me some perspective on radiation...