July 24, 2008
My counters are glow-in-the-dark good!
As if I don't have enough to worry about.
SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.
“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.
[...]
A granite countertop that emits an extremely high level of radiation, as a small number of commercially available samples have in recent tests, could conceivably expose body parts that were in close proximity to it for two hours a day to a localized dose of 100 millirem over just a few months.
Let's see, an increased risk of cancer if you sit at a granite countertop for hours on end.
Like I do when surfing the internet.
There's only one thing worse than getting cancer from your counters.
Cue up the lawyers.
Personal injury lawyers are already advertising on the Web for clients who think they may have been injured by countertops. “I think it will be like the mold litigation a few years back, where some cases were legitimate and a whole lot were not,” said Ernest P. Chiodo, a physician and lawyer in Detroit who specializes in toxic tort law. His kitchen counters are granite, he said, “but I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.”
Cripes. Is there nothing that's not bad for you?
Posted by Mike Lief at July 24, 2008 08:15 PM
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Comments
Just think of all the 'lectricity you'll save by, say, not having to turn on lights at night and boiling water just by setting the pot on the counter.
And it'll keep you warm in the wintertime!
Win win I say.
Posted by: BlogDog at July 25, 2008 06:41 AM