Fear of radon in childhood home pushes Saskatoon woman with lung cancer to warn of risks

A Saskatoon woman who always associated lung cancer with smoking says she couldn't believe it when she, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with the disease.

When Kerri Tucker found out the most likely cause, she was shocked: it was radon exposure.

Radon is a radioactive gas that comes out of the ground through the breakdown of uranium in the soil and can accumulate in people's homes.

When the gas hits the lungs, it can trigger cancer. After tobacco, radon exposure is the second-highest cause of lung cancer, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Tucker knows all about radon now, but last summer when a doctor found a concerning spot in a chest x-ray she had done, she and her family knew very little.

She considers herself lucky to have had a bout of pneumonia that led to needing that X-ray, because her lung cancer is considered curable due to catching itin its early stages.

Tucker has undergone surgery and chemotherapy but also feels a strong drive to get the word out about the risks of radon.

Radon's risks are pronounced in Saskatchewan, where new research by a non-profit dedicated to studying and solving radon exposures, called Evict Radon, has found that one in three homes in Saskatchewan hasdangerous radon levels.

People in the province are the second-highest radon-exposed population on Earth, behind Poland, according to Evict Radon. Half of Regina's homes exceed the maximum radon exposure limit.

As for where Tucker was exposed to radon, she is not sure. She has had her current home tested for radonand found it has safe levels.

"It gives me some reassurance because I'm raising children in this home and [it] makes me feel better about their future," she said on CBC Radio.

She suspects her childhood home is the culprit.

"It makes me a little worried. I kind of want to go and put a note in the mailbox of the house that I lived in as a child. It just makes me want to spread the word even more," she said.

Tucker's father, Ken Mossing, joined her this week at the launch of a Lung Associationinitiative urging people to get their homes radon tested.

Mossing said he found it very scary that Tucker'schildhood home is likely where the high radon levels were.

"It's very concerning and I'm very concerned about my other family members," he said.

'We need to solve this problem for our children'

Radiation biologist Aaron Goodarzi wants to find out why people in Saskatchewan are exposed to so much radon.

Goodarzi works with Evict Radon, which is launching a national study seeking answers. He said the answers arein people's homes, which is why he's urging as many people in Saskatchewan to sign up for the study as possible.

"Until they do that, we won't have the data that we need to solve this problem for our children," he said, adding that children are the most susceptible to the negative health consequences of radon exposure.

Participating in the study involves buying a test kit through evictradon.org, which costs $51.99. It is sent to people's homes and needs to be set up so that it can collect data. From there, cancer researchers, engineers and architects with Evict Radon will parse through the results.

"This is not just about radon testing, although that is very, very important. This is about finding out why certain homes but not others have a high radon problem, because by understanding that we will be able to engineer it out in the future," Goodarzi said.

He said it's not just the homes themselves that matter but "who amongst us also have the behaviours that might increase our radon exposure."