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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'><font face="Arial" size="2">Rob: Do you test indoor air for Radon in Canada?</font><div><font face="Arial" size="2"> Here in America, it's the leading "<b style="color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>completely preventable</i></b>" cause of death from lung cancer in non-smokers, yet not one of my four (4) lung doctors ever heard of the January, 2005 <b style="text-align: center;">SURGEON GENERAL HEALTH ADVISORY ON RADON: </b><span style="color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">"</span><b style="color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>Indoor radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in
the United States and breathing it over prolonged periods can present a
significant health risk to families all over the country. It's important to
know that this threat is completely preventable. Radon can be detected with a
simple test and fixed through well-established venting techniques.</i></b><span style="color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">"</span></font><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><font color="#151515"> In his Radon Advisory, the Surgeon General </font><span style="text-align: justify;">General failed to point the finger at EPA officials
that specifically </span><span style="text-align: justify;">excluded Radon from its Radionuclides Rule of 1976
thereby causing thousands of “</span></font><b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; color: rgb(21, 21, 21);"><i>completely </i></b><b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">preventable</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify; color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">”</span><b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> deaths for 38 years</b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> in areas where the major source of Radon is radioactive groundwater from hundreds of nuclear facilities & Superfund sites like Long Island, NY. </span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><font face="Arial" size="2"> <o:p></o:p></font></p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><font face="Arial" size="2"> The EPA Bar Graph in its <b><i>Citizen’s Guide to Radon</i></b> @ <a href="http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html">www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html</a> indicates RADON caused <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">21,000</span></b> deaths per
year in 2005; compared to <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">17,400</span></b>
for Drunk Driving --- yet mothers are not <b><span style="background:yellow;
mso-highlight:yellow">MADD</span></b> about RADON poisoning their children.</font></p>
<font face="Arial" size="2"><ul><li><font face="Arial" size="2" style="text-align: justify;">How many mothers know a</font><b style="text-align: center;"> </b><span style="text-align: center;">Radon level of
4 .0 pCi/L-Air is equal to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day from the moment they bring their babies home from the hospital?</span></li><li><span style="text-align: center;">How many even know </span><span style="text-align: center;">4 .0 pCi/L means 8.88 Radon atoms per minute are creating radioactive Polonium while ejecting high energy Alpha particles --- and it takes only one Alpha particle to damage the
DNA in a cell. </span></li><li><span style="text-align: center;">If damaged cells can't be repaired, they can mutate into cancer
cells and, a</span>t a Radon level of 4 .0 pCi/L, <span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: yellow; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><b>7 out of 1000</b></span> non-smokers could get lung cancer. </li><li>For
people who smoke, the figure would be higher; <span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: yellow; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><b>62 per 1000</b></span>. </li><li>Breathing air containing only<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><u><span style="background: yellow;"><b>26.7 trillionths of a
microgram per liter</b></span></u> of Radon-222 (one of Radon's 39 isotopes) has the same lung cancer risk as
smoking a pack of
cigarettes a day.</li><li><p class="MsoBodyText2">Radon’s lung-cancer risk from inhaling only <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">9</span></b> Alpha particles a
minute (<b>12,787</b> a day) is equivalent to smoking <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">20</span></b> cigarettes a day
and could give <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">1 in 142</span>
</b>non-smokers lung cancer; <b>1 in 16</b> smokers.</p></li><li><p class="MsoBodyText2">Similarly, inhaling <b><span style="background:yellow;
mso-highlight:yellow">22</span></b> Alpha particles per minute (31,680/day)
from 10 pCi/L of Radon can result in a lung-cancer rate of <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">1 in 7</span></b> smokers and <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">1 in 55</span> </b>non-smokers;
comparable to current U.S. Melanoma skin
cancer rates of <b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Arial;background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">1 in 55</span></b> -- up from <b>1 in 1,500 </b>since 1935; yet the Sun still shines as bright.</p></li><li><p class="MsoBodyText2">Page 2 of the attachment corresponds to my home town and indicates 10-liter
per minute (LPM) showers have been bombarding thousands of people with between <b><span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">5,439 to 6,127</span></b> Alpha
particles per minute for at least a decade, yet New York has never set a requirement to aerate tap water; unlike Vermont, which mandates aeration if a well has only 5 pCi/L-Water of Radon -- even after a 1990 Radon study showed thousands of public wells had huge amounts of Radon-222. (<a href="http://www.gfxtechnology.com/1990-Rn.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.gfxtechnology.com/1990-Rn.pdf</a>)</p></li><li><p class="MsoBodyText2">Radon is known to cause skin cancer too.</p></li><li><p class="MsoBodyText2"><b>How many people do you know have had both Skin & Lung Cancer? </b><b>Breast cancer from Gamma Rays emitted by Radon-222's most deadly daughter: Lead-210, which has a half life of 22 years compared to 3.8 days for Radon-222?</b></p></li></ul></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><font face="Arial" size="2">Best regards,</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><font face="Arial" size="2">Dr. Carmine F. Vasile</font></p><div><hr id="stopSpelling"><font face="Arial" size="2">To: greenbuilding@lists.bioenergylists.org<br>Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 13:03:30 -0400<br>From: ArchiLogic@yahoo.ca<br>Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Air quality in straw bale houses<br><br>
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On Mon, 23 Jun 2014 20:14:49 -0400, Stephen Collette <stephen@yourhealthyhouse.ca> wrote:<br><br></font><blockquote style="border-left:#0000FF 2px solid;padding-left:1ex;"><font face="Arial" size="2">I have done some air quality testing on my own accord in a couple of houses for differing reasons. </font></blockquote><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></div><blockquote style="border-left:#0000FF 2px solid;padding-left:1ex;"><font face="Arial" size="2">Actual studies? Hmm. Not off the top of my head, but more importantly is what she is concerned about. <br><br>------- Forwarded message -------<br>From: "Barbara Jones" <barbara@strawworks.co.uk><br><br>Does anyone know of any recent tests on this subject in strawbale houses?<br></font></blockquote><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font><div><font face="Arial" size="2">[Looking up] </font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">Nothing on the top of my head either.<br></font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">I find that the majority of homeowners usually don't even think about IAQ unless there is something wrong with it and it's gotten to the point that there have been noticeable deleterious effects to occupant health.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">I would go so far as to venture that poor IAQ in residential buildings is probably the norm rather than exceptional simply because proper ventilation design /performance verification is the exception rather than the norm.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">As such, I would venture that if there are any recent IAQ tests done on SB houses, the results would not likely be flattering and not likely the sort of test results that Ms. Jones was hoping to hear about.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">ie It's unlikely that homeowners (SB or toherwise) would be doing IAQ tests on houses that are not experiencing issues.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br></font></div><div id="ecxM2Signature"><div><font face="Arial" size="2">-- </font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">=== * ===<br>Rob Tom<br>Kanata, Ontario, Canada<br><br>A r c h i L o g i c at Y a h o o dot C A<br>(manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")</font></div></div><font face="Arial" size="2"><br>_______________________________________________
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