There's a killer lurking in and around your home and you may not even know it. Dead bolts and window locks are no match; in fact you could be in danger right now!
That killer is Radon, a radioactive gas. It's a deadly by-product of decaying Uranium in the ground.
How deadly? Consider this; Radon is responsible for more than 20,000 lung cancer deaths every year. Claiming more lives annually than drunk driving and house fires, combined!
According to the surgeon general, Radon exposure is second only to smoking as the leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. Scary! When you consider more people who've never touched a cigarette are developing lung cancer. According to Dr. Veena Antony for those who do smoke Radon only increases their risk of getting it.
"It more than doubles their chances of developing lung cancer, smoking carries risks beyond the cigarette itself, there are other entities in our environment that can combine with cigarette smoke, such as Radon to worsen the outcome they may get."
You might be surprised to know you'll find some of the highest Radon levels in the Nation, in 15 Alabama counties.
In fact, look outside your front door. A home on your street could be one of the 30% of those in West Jefferson County, with a Radon level above what's recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Dr. Antony says the cause of those higher levels is coarse rock. "That kind of rock for some reason appears to have a lot of radio activity in it and homes that are built on that kind of rock sometimes have a higher amount of radon in them."
State Radon Coordinator Patricia Smith says invisible threats are the ones we're most likely to fix. "When we can't taste something and we can't touch something and we can't see something we are hesitant about taking care of it."
Radon test kits are available at your local county extension office. Five dollars is all that stands between you and knowing whether or not your home has high levels of Radon.
"We look at 12 hundred to 25 hundred to fix a home, when you think of the first time treatment of lung cancer it's much greater than this," Smith says.
* Check out the link above for a step by step video with Alabama's Radon Coordinator on how to test your home for Radon once you've purchased a test kit.
