the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An eight‐month investigation by the Akron Beacon Journal’ s sister paper, The Columbus Dispatch – both part of the USA TODAY Network – found federal, state and local policymakers have for decades failed to protect Ohioans from the invisible killer lurking in their homes even though the risk has been known since the 1980s.
Melissa Derrig is living with lung cancer, which she believes is linked to prolonged radon exposure from living in her previous home in Ellet, Ohio.
Not knowing nagged at Melissa until she learned some unsettling news: The Ellet, Ohio, house where Melissa and her husband lived for more than 30 years, where they raised their two children and built a life, was filled with dangerous levels of the odorless, colorless gas called radon.
The naturally occurring radioactive gas in soil and rocks is very common in much of Ohio, but millions of Ohioans don’ t know they’ re‐inhaling it. The toxic gas that poisons the air is created by decaying radium in the soil beneath an estimated 50 % of Ohio homes, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
The gas can seep into any building through basements and concrete slabs. The leading cause of lung cancer in non‐smokers, it kills 21,000 Americans annually, according to
Interviews with cancer survivors, doctors, scientists, researchers and lawyers, along with a review of thousands of records spanning nearly 40 years, found the failures have left Ohioans at higher risk of what the CDC calls the deadliest cancer of all.
Some states require radon testing in schools, day cares and public spaces, or help fund mitigation in houses and rentals. Ohio does not. The Ohio Department of Health does offer free mail‐order tests, but only a fraction of Ohioans have taken advantage of the program.
Melissa, who now lives in a new ranch home she and her husband built, was blindsided by the risk that radon posed.
“ I didn’ t know,” she said.“ I had no idea.”
Now, months after being diagnosed with lung cancer, Melissa is telling her story to raise awareness of radon and to spare others from illness or even death.
She calls it her“ crusade.”