Part 4 Evidence of Radon?

Reasearch on the risk of radon exposure and human health is more extensive that many studies on other human carcinogens. Most radon research was derived from epidemiological studies on underground miners. As early as the Middle Ages, miners in parts of Germany and Czechoslovakia were diagnosed with lung-related illnesses. The intial identification of this lung illness as cancer was in 1879. It was not hypothesized that radon was a cause of the lung cancers in the miners until 1924. Radon as a cause of the lung cancers in miners was not universally recognized until futher epidemiological reports were issued in the 1050's and 1960's. During that time, it was also identified that it was alpha particales emitted from radon and its decay products that caused the lung cancer.