No one likes to hear the words ‘cancer’ or ‘tumor’… especially when discussing the health of children. Unfortunately for the residents of a Florida community, those words and children have gone together way too often.
Health officials now suspect that elevated levels of radon in the area’s drinking water may have played a part in causing at least a dozen cases of brain cancer or brain tumors and have started testing water from area wells, interviewing residents, and conducting in-depth environmental testing.
THE ACREAGE — Health officials will roll out more environmental tests to determine whether a common factor — radon — could be the cause of a suspected cancer cluster in The Acreage.
The Palm Beach County Health Department plans to screen for the radioactive gas in the homes of a dozen families whose children were diagnosed with brain tumors or brain cancer in recent years.
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Investigators would complete the radon tests within the next few weeks, after health officials wrap up a month of exhaustive interviews with families of the dozen Acreage children who were diagnosed with brain tumors or brain cancer from 1993 to 2008.
Radium produces radon — a radioactive gas, known to cause lung cancer — when it decays in rocks, soil and water. If elevated levels of radon are found in a home, that could indicate that sources of excessive radiation exist.
Based on samples they took randomly from 50 Acreage homes last year, state environmental officials concluded that some homes in The Acreage have wells with elevated levels of radium and other radioactive substances, which could be from natural causes. ( source )
Below you will find links to other articles on the topic of radon in the air, radon in the water, ways to test for radon and ways to get rid of radon:
