Cary Hatch was enjoying retirement after years as a marketing strategist in D.C. Then, she got diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
With one-pill-a-day targeted therapy, her EGFR-mutated lung cancer is “in check.”
Now, she’s raising awareness about radon, which is and the No. 2 cause overall, according to the National Institutes of Health.
“I didn’t see this one coming at all,” Hatch said; she had no symptoms. After her diagnosis in 2024, she and her husband bought an inexpensive radon monitoring kit. It came back with double the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended safe threshold.
“Many people don’t know it’s a radioactive gas that’s naturally occurring,” said Hatch, making it “tricky because you can’t see it, smell it or taste it — but you can test for it, inexpensively and easily.”
Hatch is pulling together a public awareness coalition, called “Power vs. Radon,” in an effort to make radon testing as routine as changing the batteries in a smoke detector.
Radon testing and mitigation
Radon testing kits are available at hardware stores, and are often provided free by jurisdictions, Hatch said.
“You put it in the lowest part of your home, most likely in a basement or the lowest level, close to the slab,” she said. Even in an apartment building, Hatch said, “I would encourage people to do testing, just to make sure.”
Depending upon the test, after a period of time “you’ll get a reading, and if your home levels are over four, you definitely want to have that eradicated in a way that can make your air safe again, because you’re breathing radioactive gas, potentially,” Hatch said.
After living in her current home for 25 years, she had a reading of 8 picocuries per liter, .
“You have to have a certified examiner come in and look at your home to see where this could be coming from,” Hatch said. “This gas can come in through any avenue — it could be cracks in your foundation, it could be through plumbing, there’s gas that comes out in your shower water.”
If a home tests high for radon, Hatch said mitigation in the D.C. area costs between $800 and $1,500 — a fraction of the human and financial cost of a late-stage lung cancer diagnosis.
Hatch recommends going to an online resource, and consulting your jurisdiction “to see a map with the hot spots.”
The and also provide resources about radon.
“Get a test kit,” Hatch said. “You have to test your home in a way that allows you to take action.”
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