Good morning, All:

I just need to chime in.

I don’t sell counter tops. I don’t install or remove counter tops. I have no dog in this fight.

I am just an Industrial Hygienist (for 20 years). I was a Radiation Safety Officer for 16 years and I taught the syllabus on radiation toxicology at Red Rocks Community College in Golden, Colorado for four years. I also lectured in Radiation Toxicology at Denver University as part of the Masters Program in Environmental Policy, and I have performed certified radiation safety training for such obscure organizations as the D.O.E. Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility outside of Denver. I have also performed radiation safety audits for other obscure locations such as the Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico, and the VA Hospital in Denver. I have been the on-site Radiation Safety Officer in the decommissioning of radiation laboratories and on NPL Denver radium sites. And I have been the radiation adviser on radiation exposure issues for the U.S.G.S.

So, unlike Mr. Gerhart, I’m not very well versed in counter tops – in fact, I don’t know nuthin’ about counter-tops.

But unlike Mr. Gerhart, I know a little something about radiation, radiation toxicology, and epidemiology and when I read Mr. Gerharts posts, I want to weep – since it is difficult to convey how so completely confused, misinformed, and generally uninformed about radiation Mr. Gerhart truly is. Reading his posts, is painful. It is hard to believe that someone could be so wrong about so much and yet have so much to say! So, I haven’t read through all of Mr. Gerhart’s posts or waded through all the gibberish.

So, I selected just one, post randomly, and thought I would comment on it. In that post Mr. Gerhart in his hallmark technical incompetence in the area of radiation issues makes the following statement.

Radiation is a proxy used to prove that Radon will be present, if you know what you are doing.

Actually – this is a good place to start since radiation is a proxy to prove that radon will be present only if you are a complete nut and you have absolutely no idea what you are doing or talking about. In fact, that would have to be the only way that you could possibly believe that “Radiation is a proxy used to prove that Radon will be present.” Maybe its true in the fantasy Counter-Top World created in Mr. Gerhart’s mind, but not in the real world occupied by you and me.

Ionizing radiation is all around us, all the time and inside us. Natural radiation is in our food, our water, and in the skies above us. Risks associated with radiation is not just a numbers game wherein high number mean high risk. If that was the case, and Mr. Gerhart was right, then for heaven’s sake, milk would be banned overnight as highly toxic since the natural alpha radiation associated with it is 1,200 pCi/L! Beer would be classified as dangerous since it typically has an activity of about 800 pCi/L, and bananas (good gawd, bananas, the most obviously toxic thing on earth) give off so much radiation that alarms were once triggered at the Rocky Flats plant by a single banana coming out of the facility in a worker's lunch box!

Bananas are actually an interesting analogy since if we look at the radiation of bananas, we see that much of the activity is associated with the naturally occurring radioactive potassium found in the banana, and it is the same material found in granite.

(Oh, by the way, I also worked for eight years at Hazen Research, where I had a real scientific laboratory, and I worked almost exclusively in geochemistry and geological mineral beneficiation. Coincidentally, I also had a (gleaming) laboratory when I was a chemist at the Colorado School of Mines Research Institute. So, you might say I dabbled in geology and mineralogy and I may know a little something about geology as well.)

Now, if we look at granite, we see feldspar, and therefore, we see potassium. And, we also see the same radioactive potassium that is in bananas. So let’s look at that potassium. Most Americans (even those who do not like bananas and never eat granite) will consume about 3 to 4 grams of potassium each day. This radioactive material calculates to about 2,100 pCi of K40 which means a little over 80 radioactive decays each second. The average person reading this post has about 150 grams of potassium in their body right now. As you sit and read this, if you are a normal human, you are irradiating 4,400 Bq (120,000 pCi) of K40, (that equates to about 4,400 radioactive disintegrations per second. And that’s just from the potassium! And that occurs in our bodies each second we live! At least 98 % of these disintegrations take place within body cells, and are potentially capable of altering the cell's DNA. So why aren’t we all dead from cancer by the age of two years old? (I have little interested in knowing Mr. Gerhart's explaination).

Cosmic radiation pours down upon the Earth. Every SECOND, some 2,000,000,000,000,000,000 high energy protons (each greater than one billion eVs) are incident upon the earth. A single high-energy proton may give rise to hundreds of millions of secondary particles including electrons, muons, photons and even neutrons. In Denver, we receive approximately 190 mrad each year from JUST cosmic radiation! The party-goers at the DNC this week will be receiving approximately 20 µR or cosmic radiation EACH HOUR – and that is just from the cosmic radiation.

Our own bodies irradiate us with ionizing radiation, at a rate of one fifth of that the average US citizen receives from radon (when we express the exposure as “dose” in mrems per year). So granite has radiation (yawn); big deal, so do I.

K concentrations in granite are similar to other geological materials such as shale and igneous rock. Virtually all granite is radioactive. That’s it. Always has been, and always will be.

What is driving this current fear-train is ignorance used to fuel the “sky-is-falling” mentality of people like Mr. Gerhart who otherwise do not have even a foundational grasp of the technical issues at hand. But since virtually none of his readers are well versed in radiation issues, they can’t determine if what he is saying is technically accurate or not. This is precisely the same set of circumstances that allows the charlatans in the “toxic mould” business to rip off so many people. 1) First you scare the willies out of them with scientific sounding Latin names and scientific units of expression and bogus pseudoscience, and then 2) you $tep in with your $ales $piel and a$$ure the poor $ucker that you are a $$pecialist who$e $ole concern i$ their health and welfare.

We could sit and debate and discuss and argue for weeks about how much radiation a banana gives off – we could present lengthy scientific papers on the best way to measure the emission rates from bananas – we could petition the government for new radioactive banana mitigation standards – we could present scientific papers arguing about the spatial and temporal variations of how much radiation a Mexican banana gives off versus a Colombian banana – but until somebody demonstrates that the radiation received from eating a banana actually increases the risk of an adverse health effect by one iota – the ENTIRE argument is a presentation on the number of angels that will fit on the head of a pin.

And so it is with radon and granite counter tops. In spite of all the lengthy mumbo-jumbo on the best way to monitor and who has the hottest granite and how much does it increase the radon concentration in a building… it is all missing the big picture which is this:

1) There is not one study, yet performed on the planet earth, by ANY organization (including the US EPA) that has measured radon concentrations in homes and has demonstrated that those exposures increase the risk of cancer by even the slightest degree.

2) The U.S. EPA in its various documents has published its acknowledgement that studies performed thus far show that as the concentration of radon in an home (from non-detect to moderate levels) goes up, the risk of cancer goes DOWN. Let me repeat that for the benefit of any members of the US Ninth Circuit who may be reading this: The most reliable and confident studies performed thus far, as reported in EPA scientific literature conclude that as radon in an home goes up, the risk of cancer goes down.

There may be kooks who peddle the dangers of microwave ovens, toxic moulds, and overhead power lines, and they are likely the same individuals, like Mr. Gerhart, who embrace the current fear du jour of radon in counter-tops. They may present all kinds of scientifically valid emission studies and comparison studies, and comparative levels, but none of them can relate those emission studies to adverse health consequences without drawing on the misconceptions that the EPA or BEIR has demonstrated that a provable health consequence exists at all.

Folks interested in how some of those studies get perversely twisted, may find my discussions on radon studies interesting.

You may find the critical reviews of some of the studies here:
Radon: Truth vs. myth

There is no point in attempting to discuss radon issues with the Mr. Gerharts of the world. They don’t understand the basic tenets of radiation, toxicology or epidemiology, and they do not care a farthing for objective facts. They see themselves as self appointed enlightened heroes but they cannot backup anything they say – but they can regurgitate large sections of text and tautology without having to understand what they just said.

I have no intention in responding to Mr. Gerhart, he has already demonstrated that he doesn’t listen, or think, about what is being said – primarily because he lacks the technical foundation to understand what is being said.

But then, see, I’m just a lowly Radiation Safety Officer and Industrial Hygienist for the last two decades with an additional 10 years experience as a chemist, so I don’t know nuthin about selling or installing counter tops – That is Mr. Gerhart’s area of expertise.

Cheers!
Caoimhín P. Connell
Forensic Industrial Hygienist
Forensic Industrial Hygiene

(The opinions expressed here are exclusively my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect my professional opinion, opinion of my employer, agency, peers, or professional affiliates. The above post is for information only and does not reflect professional advice and is not intended to supercede the professional advice of others.)

AMDG