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Twice a year, Brian Tichenor makes the 1,200 mile trip each way from his home in Kansas to an old uranium mine in Montana, where he takes an elevator 85 feet below the surface to sit in the middle. radioactive radon to relieve the pain of his chronic eye condition.
“I found it like I think a lot of people do,” said Tichenor, 67. “It’s a point of desperation with conventional treatment.”
While radon is commonly known as a dangerous gas mined from basements, sufferers travel to Montana and pay to breathe, drink, and bathe in its radioactive particles. Travelers view radon exposure as low-dose radiation therapy for a long list of health concerns. But the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization, among others, accuse gas of being the second leading cause of lung cancer. Although oncologists use radiation as a first-line treatment to destroy dangerous cells, its role in the United States at low doses for other conditions is disputed. The pandemic has reignited this debate as clinical trials around the world test whether low doses of radiation can help treat patients with covid-19.
But radon is not the same radiation used by American doctors, warn radiation experts. Radon is only one of the radioactive chemical elements and, because it is a gas, it can be inhaled, which makes it particularly dangerous. Sitting in a radon-filled room and targeted radiation therapy at a medical facility is as different as “chalk and cheese,” said Brian Marples, professor of radiation oncology at the University of Rochester.
“In clinical therapy we know exactly what the dose is, we know exactly where it is going,” he said.
Marples said much of the argument for the therapeutic use of radon is based on historical reports, unlike evidence-based research on clinical radiation. Still, some radiation experts are divided over what radon level should be considered dangerous and whether it could have positive health effects.
Another concern is that radon treatment in mines is largely unregulated. Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services does not have the authority to authorize or authorize mines, although department spokesman Jon Ebelt said the health risks associated with the exhibition are well known. The EPA also does not have the authority to impose limits on radon.
Nonetheless, every year travelers head to western Montana, where four idle radon-containing mines lie within 11 miles of each other, near the rural communities of Basin and Boulder. Day passes range from $ 7 to $ 15. Gas is formed naturally when radioactive elements in mountain bedrock decay.
Outside the Merry Widow Health Mine, a billboard-like banner announces “Fountain of Youth. FEEL YOUNG AGAIN! Inside its tunnels, water seeps from the rock faces. Those who want total immersion can slip into a clawfoot tub filled with radon-contaminated water. People dip their feet and hands in water or just sit down and work on a puzzle. On a bench is a printout of a Forbes article on clinical trials that shows low-dose radiation could be a treatment for covid-19.
For owner Chang Kim, 69, his business is a mission, especially for people with chronic conditions such as arthritis and diabetes. Those who swear by radon therapy say that at low doses, a little stress on the body triggers the immune system to rehabilitate and reduces inflammation.
“The people who come to the mines, they’re not stupid,” Kim said. “People’s lives are improved because of them.”
He heard about mines 14 years ago when he and his wife, Veronica Kim, lived in Seattle and a connective tissue disease wrinkled Veronica’s hands and feet. Traditional medicine was not working. After two sessions a year in the mines since, Veronica smiles when she shows her hands.
“They are no longer deformed,” she said, adding that she was able to reduce her use of meloxicam, a medicine to reduce pain and swelling.
Tichenor said going to a radon mine for six years was one of the few things that calmed his scleritis, a pain-causing disorder he describes as ice picks stabbing his eyes. As for its potential danger, he said radon treatment is like any drug: too much can cause harm.
He and other radon users mention European countries such as Germany where treatment can be controversial, but doctors can still prescribe radon treatments for various ailments that insurance can even cover.
In the United States, the EPA maintains that no level of radon exposure is safe even though everyone encounters the element in their life. The agency notes that radon is responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year. He recommends that homeowners with radon levels of 4 picocuries per liter or more add a radon reduction system. In contrast, the owners of Montana’s oldest radon therapy mine, Free Enterprise Radon Health Mine, said their mine operated an average of 1,700.
Monique Mandali said the federal guidelines are “a bunch of nonsense”. Mandali lives in Helena, about 40 minutes from the mines, and tries to adjust to three sessions a year at Free Enterprise – 25 hours of exposure over 10 days for arthritis in her back.
“People say, ‘Well, you know, but you might have lung cancer.’ And I say, ‘I’m 74. Who cares at this point?’ “She said. “I’d rather try my luck with radon in terms of living with arthritis than with other western drugs.”
Antone Brooks, a former US Department of Energy scientist who studied low-dose radiation, is among those who think the federal government’s position on no radon exposure level goes too far. He pointed to research that indicates that low doses of radiation potentially activate pathways in the body that could be protective. Although what is considered a “low dose” depends on who is speaking.
“If you want to go into a radon mine twice a year, I would say, okay, that’s not too much,” he said. “If you want to live there, I would say that’s too much.”
In the early 1900s, before antibiotics were popularized, small doses of radiation were used to treat pneumonia, which relieved respiratory symptoms. Since then, fear has largely kept the therapeutic potential of low-dose radiation untapped, said Dr Mohammad Khan, associate professor at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. But amid the pandemic, healthcare providers struggling to find treatments as hospital patients die dying have given clinical radiation another look.
So far, trials conducted by Khan show that patients who have received low-dose targeted irradiation to their lungs have stopped receiving oxygen and discharged from the hospital earlier than those without treatment. Khan said more research is needed, but it could potentially expand the role of clinical radiation for other diseases.
“Some people think that all radiation is the same, that all radiation is like the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that is clearly not the case,” Khan said. “If you put radiation in the hands of the experts and the right people – we use it wisely, we use it with caution – it balances the risks and benefits.”
The logo of Free Enterprise Radon Health Mine is a miner jumping with crutches in the air. About 70 years ago, a woman said her bursitis was gone after visiting the mine several times. Thousands more have followed suit.
“We believe in it,” said Leah Lewis, who co-owns the mine with her husband, Ryan Lewis, and has relied on her to help him treat her Crohn’s disease.
The couple live there and grew up in Boulder, going into the tunnels just like their 5 year old daughter does now. Her husband’s great-grandfather owned the mine, and the business has been in the family ever since.
“Not a single person came back and said they had lung cancer here,” said Ryan Lewis. “If they did, they would shut us down so quickly.”
Other than a billboard outside of Helena, the family doesn’t really advertise the business. Customers tend to find them. Like many businesses, Ryan Lewis said, Free Enterprise took a hit last year as people canceled plans due to the pandemic. Before that, he said, the company broke even, adding that radon can be “hard to sell.”
But he said the cattle ranching family plan to make it work as long as it doesn’t cost them money.
“The land is an investment, and we want to keep it in the family,” he said. “And there are a lot of people using it, and there is some responsibility in that.”
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