Replies

1. 
   UncleDunc | Jul 27, 2004 03:01am | #1

   >> okay so there is asbestos in soapstone.

   There may be asbestos in soapstone. Not all soapstones have asbestos. Even if the soapstone you like has asbestos, it can be managed to prevent the asbestos from becoming airborne. Even if asbestos does get into the air, the ventilation may take it out of the house before you can inhale it. Even if you do inhale it, not all kinds of asbestos are equally injurious when inhaled. Even if you do inhale the bad kind, occasional exposure is not correlated with illness. Even if you sand your countertops after every meal and inhale the dust, frequent exposure is not correlated with illness in non-smokers. If you smoke, you may be in trouble, but if you smoke, you may be introuble anyway, regardless of asbestos.

   >> How about granite giving off radon?

   Yes, granite produces radon. The question is how much. And the next question is, is that much bad for you. Consider the millions of Americans who have spent their entire working lives in granite banks, post offices, and other government offices over the last 200 and some years, surrounded by far more granite than you would have in your kitchen, yet no one has ever noticed a correlation between working in those buildings and lung cancer.

   Most of the people who go around shrieking about radiation are operating on the assumption that there is no safe dose of radiation. Sometimes they make that explicit and sometimes they don't. The problem with that theory is that in can't explain why people who live at high altitudes and experience much more background radiation don't have more cancers than people who live at lower altitudes. But they don't. Millions of people who live in Denver, Mexico City, La Paz, etc. are just as healthy - often healthier - than their flatlander contemporaries when the data are controlled for exposure to other known carcinogens.

   Similarly, flight crews are exposed to much more radiation than the general population, and it's the kind that is powerful enough to punch through the aluminum skin of a jet. The no safe dose theory would predict that they would have more cancers than the general population, but they don't.

   I have read that the EPA standard for residential radon is based solely of theory, and that if you look at the incidence of radon and the incidence of lung cancer, they are negatively correlated. That is, more radon goes with less lung cancer, less radon goes with more lung cancer. I haven't confirmed the correlation for myself, but I read it in a source I tend to trust.

   You have a better chance of simultaneously winning the lottery and two Nobel Prizes, shooting a hole in one and being struck by lightning than you do of getting sick from the amount of radon emitted by granite countertops.

1. 
   PatMcG | Jul 28, 2004 07:04pm | #2

   You are refreshingly correct.

   Trial lawyers, as a group, leave no money7 on the table. If there was any fire under the smoke about radon from granite, asbestos from soapstone, cancer from pcbs, etc etc etc, there would be class action suits.

1. 
   Hannah | Jul 29, 2004 04:47am | #3

   There has to be causation and actual damages. So that isn't enough to go on.

1. 
   PatMcG | Jul 29, 2004 06:31pm | #4

   Exactly so.

2. 
   DANL | Jul 30, 2004 06:09pm | #5

   Good reply! I'm so sick of the alarmists out there running around like Chicken Little. As you pointed out, if you're afraid of any radiation you'd better not travel in airplanes.  Just like all the people worried about gun deaths when many, many, many more are slaughtered in car wrecks each year. But that's not PC; forget I mentioned it.