70000 Classrooms Expose School Children to a Killer Radioactive Gas

March 01, 2012 (MMD Newswire) -- Our nation's school children may be breathing a radioactive gas every day in their classrooms, a gas that causes lung cancer. These young victims and their parents are unaware of the danger even as the EPA seeks to cut funding for the nation's radon program.

The American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (AARST) and Cancer Survivors Against Radon are protesting to Congressional budget committees about cuts proposed by EPA for the 2013 budget.

NBC's TODAY SHOW on February 29 featured an Investigative Report by Jeff Rossen that reveals a startling fact: 25 years after the passage of the Indoor Radon Abatement Act as many as 70,000 classrooms in United States may have high levels of the radioactive gas. The problem is that neither school officials nor EPA know which ones they are because no one has tested them. Additionally, many of our nation's schools are unwilling to test for this form of radioactivity because of funding concerns in case they have to fix the problem. Rossen reported that school systems in hot radon zones turned down offers to test their schools due to misinformation and budget concerns.

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