Health Canada recalls radon meters from Amazon warehouses in Mississauga, Brampton and across Ontario
Published September 8, 2022 at 8:11 pm
Health Canada is warning anyone who bought a Elifecity Portable Radon Meter from Amazon lately to immediately stop using the device.
The meter is a portable battery-powered device. Ostensibly the meter is supposed to track the real time amount of radon in the air. However, the meters routinely display a low reading regardless of the actual radon content around. The meters have a margin of error of up to 90 per cent.
Since the meters don’t show the actual content of radon in the air, people who use them may wind up staying in an environment with higher than safe levels of radon.
This can cause significant health effects. Radon is a gas created by uranium breaking down in the soil. This gas retains some of the uranium’s radioactivity and when inhaled exposes the lungs to that radiation.
As a result radon exposure is the second most common source of lung cancer, behind only cigarette smoke. All told roughy 16 per cent of lung cancer cases result from radon exposure, per the Canadian Lung Association.
Radon is odorless and colorless gas that seeps into home and building through cracks in floors, walls and foundations. While radon is harmless outdoors as it mixes with other gases, it can prove dangerous indoors where it sit and collects leading to exposure in high doses.
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The Canadian government has set 200 Becquerel per cubic meter as the safe level.
Health Canada reminds residents to dispose of the Elifecity unit immediately. Those wishing to check their indoor radon levels should only ever buy meters certified by the Canadian National Radon Proficiency Program (C-NRPP).
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