IT CAN seep through floors and is radioactive. But you can鈥檛 see it, feel it or smell it 鈥� and it seems most people don鈥檛 like to think about radon either.
Debate has raged for years among the experts over just how risky the gas really is. Some believe the nuclear industry has exaggerated the dangers to deflect concerns about radiation from non-natural sources. Some even think small doses may be good for us. Yet every major nuclear agency rates radon as a leading cause of death from ionising radiation. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that radon causes 15,000 to 22,000 lung cancer deaths in the US a year. In the UK, the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) blames radon for over 2000 lung cancers a year.
However many deaths radon actually causes it is clear that a lot of them are preventable. Radon tests are cheap, and when the gas is found, diverting it from buildings is usually a simple matter of fitting vents, fans or membranes. Yet in people鈥檚 homes, rates of testing and remediation have been sluggish. And when it comes to workplaces, the dangers from radon are barely recognised.
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Over the past decade, governments have gone to varying lengths to persuade homeowners to take protective measures. Some countries, such as Sweden, have statutory controls; in others, such as the US, radon testing has become a routine part of buying or selling a house. Most countries, though, have relied on voluntary measures to control the hazard and have come up against the brick wall of public apathy.
Governments could do more. For instance, levels of exposure deemed acceptable by most governments imply a risk of radon-induced cancers that would be intolerable for many hazards. Lowering these acceptable levels would save lives if the recommendations were acted upon. But removing homeowners鈥� blind spot about radon is never going to be easy.
The same excuse cannot be used for offices, factories and public buildings. In the workplace, the state has more established legal responsibilities and often uses such opportunities to lead by example. Yet ask government officials in most countries what they are doing about radon in workplaces, and all too often you get blank looks.
The UK is a case in point. According to the NRPB, radon in the workplace may cause up to 250 lung cancers annually. That is about the same number as are killed by injuries at work. Regulations in the UK oblige employers to take action where radon concentrations exceed the action level. Yet businesses are rarely alert to radon, and health and safety officials do little to raise awareness. Only about 10 per cent of the 150,000 potentially afflicted workplaces in England and Wales have been tested since regulations were introduced in 1985. At that rate it will be at least 20 years before all workplaces are better protected.
Three main factors have contributed to this neglect. First, many health and safety inspectors simply don鈥檛 know about radon, as the gas is not associated with particular business activities and is only detectable with special apparatus. As one radon expert put it to me, 鈥淲hen you explain the risks to field inspectors and say that radon causes 250 deaths a year, their eyes light up.鈥�
The second reason relates to culturally entrenched attitudes towards different types of risks. The traditional mindset of health and safety inspectors holds employers more culpable for safety risks resulting from workplace activities than for unfamiliar health risks of natural origin. If the radon came in a gas cylinder, they would take it far more seriously.
Last but not least, radon control fails to figure as an important national objective. Indeed, the UK government actually discouraged vigorous enforcement of radon controls in the early 1990s. Without victims鈥� groups or unions banging on the government鈥檚 door, scientists within the UK鈥檚 nuclear watchdogs have a hard job persuading domestic or European Union policy makers to make radon a priority.
There are some eerie similarities to the way BSE controls were not properly enforced in British slaughterhouses. Meat hygiene inspectors lacked expertise; there were communication breakdowns; government spin reinforced deeply held beliefs that BSE posed no threat to human health; and political and business pressures put a brake on active enforcement.
The situation in many other countries is little better. Some EU member states have yet to fully implement a 1996 directive requiring controls on workplace radon. Canada does little. Even in the US, where radon fever has gripped the housing market, workplace radon has been almost entirely overlooked.
Radon has lessons for the way governments manage other public health risks. It highlights the need to come to grips with the deep-seated pressures and cultures that can hamper the work of even the best-intentioned inspection regimes and agencies. The job of government does not end with writing the regulations.