`EVIL' AGENCY: THE EPA AND THE BIG RADON LIE

The Environmental Protection Agency has emerged as one of the most evil organizations in our country, and that's the plan. EPA bureaucrats, according to at least one spokesman, long for the day when a call from the EPA will instill as much citizen fear as a call from the Internal Revenue Service. Lies, propaganda and fear mongering are crucial elements to their agenda. Philip H. Abelson, the science adviser to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, exposes the radon phase of the EPA agenda.

Writing in Regulation (Fall 1991), a publication of the Washington-based CATO Institute, Abelson warns that Congress and the EPA are going to force us to pay billions of dollars for radon control measures for negligible health benefits. Central to the EPA's power agenda are official lies like "43,000 people per year die of lung cancer attributable to radon." Abelson says that these numbers are not supported by epidemiological studies but extrapolated from old reports of the experiences of uranium miners, the vast majority of whom were smokers.

The EPA reports that five Midwest states have the highest levels of radon. Taken together, these states have twice the national average; however, the incidence of lung cancer in these states is only 80 percent of the national average. Colorado, North Dakota and Iowa have the highest radon levels, and their lung cancer deaths average 41 per 100,000 of the population. However, Delaware, Louisiana and California have the nation's lowest radon levels, but their average lung cancer death rate is 66 per 100,000.

A hare-brained assumption underlying many EPA-mandated regulatory standards is that substances toxic at high levels are also injurious at low levels. We all know that a cause of stomach cancer is excessive ingestion of table salt. If the EPA and Congress found this out, they might legislate a total ban on table salt. Indeed, a number of elements that are absolutely essential to human life in small doses are carcinogenic at high doses.

EPA bureaucrats take the position that no level of radon is safe. If the EPA, along with environmental loonies and congressional supporters, has its way, homeowners are going to pay about a trillion dollars to bring their homes up to a zero radon standard. The benefit from this expenditure, for the overwhelming majority of the nation, will approximate zero.

As a part of its fear-mongering campaign, the EPA makes baseless claims like: "Children are three times as susceptible to radon as adults." In 1990, the EPA circulated a revision of its "Citizen's Guide." Reviewers labeled the document as: "a clever example of deceptive advertisement and distortion of scientific fact," "improperly presented scientific information, omission and just plain fictitious statements," and "an advertisement for radon contractors." As a result of scathing criticism, the EPA's 1990 "Citizen's Guide" was not published.

The EPA is nearly 100 percent wrong about the dangers of radon, but the fact that it's wrong doesn't exempt you and me from the cost of its alarmist propaganda. Homeowners are increasingly finding that to sell their homes they must test for radon and, if necessary, make repairs. If the EPA has its wish that household radon levels not exceed those of outside air, almost every homeowner will be forced to make expensive household repairs.

Abelson suggests that the EPA abandon scare tactics and focus its efforts on identifying areas with unusually high radon levels. He also suggests an independent epidemiological study of the extent to which non-smokers are affected by ambient radon. The EPA refuses to conduct such a study.