‘ Beneath the radar’: With high levels of radon gas in Pa. and its links to cancer, experts say awareness is key
More than 39 % of Pa. homes either meet or surpass the threshold at which the EPA recommends taking action
ROBERTA BURKHART � Pittsburgh Post-Gazette rburkhart @ post-gazette. com
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MAR 1, 2025 5:30 AM
If the police knocked at your door and said there could be a killer in your basement, would you let them check? And, by the way, they added, there are killers hiding in almost 40 % of the basements in your neighborhood.
Surely, you’ d at least look, right?
But most people take one quick peek or don’ t check at all when it comes to radon, a deadly radioactive gas that seeps into basements via tiny cracks in foundations and is the second leading cause of lung cancer, experts say.
“ Radon causes 22,000 deaths a year from lung cancer, and people are astonished to realize that that ' s more than the number of deaths that occur