Should homebuyers be wary of radon?
Asbestos? Lead paint? Power lines? "The evidence induces
skepticism," writes Cassandra Chrones Moore in a new Cato
Institute book. "Credulity and fear have created an
atmosphere of hysteria inimical to reasoned argument, diverting
resources, burdening the taxpayer, frightening the homebuyer, and
putting at risk the long-cherished goal of many Americans to own
their own home."
In Haunted Housing: How Toxic Scare Stories Are Spooking the Public Out of House and Home, Moore, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, outlines the government-created misperceptions of risk affecting buyers and sellers of homes, tenants and landlords, brokers and agents.
"The Environmental Protection Agency, using public service announcements and media campaigns, has successfully projected messages of real danger to homebuyers," Moore says. "Current research, however, indicates that the specters of asbestos and lead belong to the past; the supposed link between radon and lung cancer has been disproved; and electromagnetic fields pose a mythical hazard."
"A risk-free society is not of this world," Moore writes. "The EPA, often encouraged by Congress, continues to act as though all hazards can be eliminated. Everyone who owns a home or who wants to be a homeowner has reason to object to the EPA’s pursuit of the impossible."
Haunted Housing is must reading for buyers and sellers of homes, regulators and policy makers. According to Professor Bruce N. Ames, director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of California at Berkeley, Moore’s book "should spur a reevaluation of where and how we spend our resources to save lives."
Click here to view selected excerpts from this book.
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