To what extend do building type, age, climate and internal temperature, or other environmental factors affect the toxicity of Radon gas? What form(s) of lung cancer are linked to this gas? What are alternative remediation strategies?
There is no unequivocal demonstration of a level of radon exposure that will cause lung cancer. All epidemiological studies of radon exposure-dose and cancer have no reliable dosimetry. All epidemiological studies of radon exposure dose are confounded by other factors, primarily smoking. No particular kind of lung cancer is linked to radon. The assumption is that radon exposure will lead to an increase of all forms of lung cancer.
While there is no demonstration that radon causes lung cancer, there is also no demonstration of a safe level of radon exposure. It is likely that regulatory limits of radon are well below a level of harm.
The amount of radon in a building varies with weather conditions. Air pressure and wind cause differential pressures on buildings drawing radon from the soil or allowing radon to diffuse from the soil. Building construction will influence how effective the differential pressures can concentrate or reduce the radon. Building materials can contribute to the radon.
There is no unequivocal demonstration of a level of radon exposure that will cause lung cancer. All epidemiological studies of radon exposure-dose and cancer have no reliable dosimetry. All epidemiological studies of radon exposure dose are confounded by other factors, primarily smoking. No particular kind of lung cancer is linked to radon. The assumption is that radon exposure will lead to an increase of all forms of lung cancer.
While there is no demonstration that radon causes lung cancer, there is also no demonstration of a safe level of radon exposure. It is likely that regulatory limits of radon are well below a level of harm.
The amount of radon in a building varies with weather conditions. Air pressure and wind cause differential pressures on buildings drawing radon from the soil or allowing radon to diffuse from the soil. Building construction will influence how effective the differential pressures can concentrate or reduce the radon. Building materials can contribute to the radon.
@Alvarez Sir: Is there some (old) data on uranium miners related to lung cancer? Interestingly ICRP's tissue weighting factor, WT for lung is 0.12 and fixed from 1977 to till today. This indicates that it indirectly support your statement " The assumption is that radon exposure will lead to an increase of all forms of lung cancer" . No change in WT value over last 40 years is surprising..
The following information may be useful
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4951500/
http://www.icrp.org/admin/Summary%20of%20April%202015%20Main%20Commission%20Meeting%20Sydney.pdf
@Kumar: The WT is based on gamma radiation and the gamma radiation assumption is stochastic leads to increase in all forms of cancer.
All miner data is old data and hardly consistent in measurement practices. Actual exposure conditions and exposure times are essentially unknown.
There is nothing surprising about the ICRP. It is an ingrown institution for regulatory purposes and promoting the work of its members. Careful reading of the articles suggested by Hamada show how baseless is the current information on radon risk. Nevertheless, the summary trumpets the remarkable consistency in model calculation.
Those with interest in risk analysis, use the precautionary principle whenever a material is thought to be a carcinogen. In this situation, there is no threshold value for cancer. Anything that causes cancer should be treated in this way. Threshold Level Values and References Doses are cited for other toxic substances, but none for cancer. As such, if there are any values for anything causing cancer, then these should be treated cited for research ad academic interest. But anyone in his senses should take flight if a toxic substance causing cancer is emitted into the environment.
The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has just issued Publication 137 “Occupational Intakes of Radionuclides: Part 3”, which includes the updated information on radon in its Section 12.7 and Annex A.
http://www.icrp.org/publication.asp?id=ICRP%20Publication%20137
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146645317734963
Thank you. Would recommendations for industrial exposure differ from domestic exposure?
Yes and no...
It depends on the "action level" given by the different national law...but with new european directive the work-health direction is low level in every plac, work, piblic, domestic...and is correct that we have a low radon level, because we live a long time in work place...do you think is correct my opinion?
Mattia
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