I was listening to the news about 15 or 20 years ago and they had one of the scientists on who had originally sounded alarm on raidon because they had done the study in the underground mines. The guy said that after 10 more years of study they decided that they had jumped the gun, and that there was no danger to humans from radon exposure in their basement. So he said don't worry about it. But by then the bureaucracy and the industry had already taken it and ran with it. He claims that nobody would listen to him now.
sadly a good friend of mine, who has never smoked a day in his life, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer at age 35. thanks to the prayers of hundreds, and advances in medicine, he is still fighting it and doing very well after 4 years. He has some of the best doctors in the country helping him out at the Mayo clinic. They told him that the cause is genetic. Virtually everybody else that he talks too, and everybody that I hear talking about him all claim it has to be from radon. He never smoked, radon is the number two cause, so that's why he has lung cancer. I think it's this type of hype that has everybody believing.
I hope your friend can fight the good fight. Sorry to hear about anyone with that dreaded disease.
There are different cancers that can be attributed to different exposures: i.e. smoking carcinogens - mainly Benzopyrine, asbestos, silica dust and radiation exposure. We had many workers here in the Buffalo NY area that were exposed to uranium ore at the steel mills and other facilities when the Manhattan Project was in full swing in the 40's. Many of these workers developed a specific type of (lung) cancer later in life, that was directly related to these radioactive exposures. Radon is a daughter product of Uranium 238 decay series. As I mentioned before genetics plays a huge role unfortunately. But something has to trigger the cell whether it is from within or environmental that is the difficult question. In theory it only takes one Radon 222 alpha particle to do the job. The human body is very resilient and can repair itself to unimaginable lengths, your genes already have it mapped out for you. So I would still err on the side of caution and minimize your exposures, because as stated above the dose dictates the poison. The radiations workers philosophy is ALARA - as low as reasonably achievable...... I digress
