Radon Can Affect the Health of Anyone

Radon Can Affect the Health of Anyone…Even Young, Healthy Athletes.

Lung Cancer Advocate Rachael Drazan-Malmberg, the Minnesota Wild and Radon.com Unite for a Testing Campaign for National Radon Action Month.

WARD HILL, MA, January 8, 2020- Air Chek, a Spruce Environmental Technologies radon testing laboratory, has announced an exciting and unique radon awareness and testing campaign beginning in January, National Radon Action Month, and continuing into early April. The campaign brings together the NHL’s Minnesota Wild; former USA Women’s Hockey player, lung cancer survivor, and radon awareness advocate Rachael Drazan-Malmberg, and Air Chek.

The campaign began to take shape last September at the International Radon Symposium in Denver, during conversations with Drazan-Malmberg, a Minnesota native and symposium guest speaker. Two major reasons for creating this new campaign for National Radon Action Month can be found on Air Chek’s radon.com Minnesota-specific website (mn.radon.com) and elsewhere:

Every 25 minutes, a person in the U.S. dies from radon-related lung cancer. It is the leading environmental cause of cancer deaths and the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers.

More than 40 percent of Minnesota homes have dangerous levels of radon gas. Radon is odorless, colorless and tasteless. Testing is easy, inexpensive and only takes 3-5 days.

Rachael Drazan-Malmberg is excited to be part of this initiative, as she represents the growing number of healthy nonsmokers who are diagnosed with lung cancer each year. Rachael, for whom a healthy lifestyle and physical fitness are of utmost importance, reports that it was a shock to learn at the age of 31 that she had Stage IV lung cancer. By testing her current home and her childhood home, she discovered that she had been exposed to elevated levels of radon most of her life. Now she is committed to preventing others from hearing the devastating words, “You have lung cancer,” by advocating for radon testing.

Carrie Lau of the full-service marketing firm Results Matter helped to facilitate the campaign, reaching out to the Minnesota Wild, based in St. Paul, MN. Lau negotiated in-arena video exposure, via the arena’s videoboard, of Drazan-Malmberg’s personal message promoting radon detection. Video messages are not common during home games, but given the importance of the message and that some of the Wild personnel knew Drazan-Malmberg from her days as an award-winning hockey player, the decision was made to allow use of the video to generate publicity for the campaign. Supported by Air Chek, Rachael’s video also will be aired on local television stations throughout the campaign.

The goal of the three-month campaign is to encourage more people to test their homes for radon. To make testing more accessible, Air Chek is offering significantly discounted radon test kits and information about radon in Minnesota. Homeowners can access the information and purchase low-cost test kits at mn.radon.com.