A Parting Shot in the Radon Controversy

Since it affects only air passageways and the lungs, radon and its progeny do not really give us a "whole body dose" like most of the other radiation sources that provide our background dose. Its contribution of 55% of our natural background is therefore given as an "equivalent whole body dose" calculated from the 2,400 mrem dose given yearly to the bronchial epithelium times an "effective dose equivalent factor" of 0.08. This calculated dose of about 200 mrem (0.2 cGy) is tied to the LNT and might make sense if the linear theory were true - which it is not. In my opinion, the BEIR data on radon and its effects are worse than meaningless. They are unscientific, fraudulent and meaningless.