Amish Flock To Montana Radon Mines To Breathe Radioactive Air – For Health Purposes
Many Amish people make use of conventional medicine and health care. At the same time, many are partial to alternative treatments and unconventional approaches to health and wellness (here are five examples).
And for some Amish folks, spending time being exposed to radon belongs on that list. A recent story in the Jefferson County, MT Monitor Online describes how popular one Montana mine has become among Amish clients.
Couple Cory and Esther Kirsch purchased a radon mine called Earth Angel in Basin, Montana last year. They had acquired the property with an eye to simply renting out its cabins, essentially ignoring the “health mine” part of the property, as far as business purposes go.
However, they soon realized the potential of the place, which led to a “pivot” of sorts. From the story:
Their minds began to change soon after they moved in. Aware that the previous owners had offered radon therapy, callers urged the Kirsches to open the mine, Esther recalled.
She remembered one who advised them to place an ad in the Busy Beaver, the Amish community’s national weekly newspaper. “We just advertised once, a business card-sized ad,” she said. “We got calls and calls, with people excited that it was open again.”
Business has been strong ever since, with mostly Amish families arriving from Pennsylvania, Missouri, Maine, and beyond. They’ve had guests from Canada and Russia as well.
Like most businesses with happy Amish customers, word of mouth can be powerful. It also helps when you’re one of the few radon sources in the country:
This June and July, the Kirsches said, revenue was up about 25 percent from last year. “We believe our increase has been because of advertising and word of mouth from satisfied customers,” said Cory, county commissioner since 2015.
Jefferson County’s radon mines are the only ones in the entire U.S. The radiation within is a result of decaying uranium, which occurs naturally and releases radon into the air and water.
In the deepest section of the Earth Angel mine, some 520 feet in, the air contains around 1600 picocuries per liter (ppl) of radon. The Environmental Protection Agency says more than 4 ppl can pose a risk.
Another nearby mine, the Merry Widow, has also enjoyed a boost thanks to interest from the Amish:
Veronica Kim, who has owned the Merry Widow with her husband since 2008, said business had increased about 10 percent each of the last few years. She had expected a dip in revenue this summer because of the drop in Canadian guests due to added hassles at the border.
Instead, an increase in Amish visitors had more than filled the gap. The compound evoked an idyllic summer scene on a recent sunny afternoon, with Amish guests in traditional dress biking through the creek-side grounds and grinning children driving side-by-sides.
“We have a lot of Mennonite Amish coming,” she said, adding that she did no advertising because word-of-mouth is so strong among the tight-knit community. “If somebody gets healed by this mine, the whole family comes the next year.”
Merry Widow welcomed its first Amish groups from Iowa and Illinois this summer. “We are so happy to welcome all of these people in summer and help them heal,” said Kim.
Does radon exposure actually work? And for what conditions?
As to the workings of radon, there is a basic explainer on the Earth Angel website:
Earth Angel Health Mine has been serving people with chronic pain since 1953.
Radon therapy is an alternative treatment that is rapidly growing throughout the world. Radon gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It is a result of the natural decay of radium. This same element is present in some spring water, soil, and rocks.
Exposure to low doses of radon gas present in the mine acts as an anti-inflammatory to the body. It can help boost the immune system and improve mobility and quality of life. Thousands of visitors have discovered a natural aid that helps relieve pain, swelling, and other debilitating symptoms.
Does radon exposure actually do people good? Some believe it to be so, including at least one person from academia. From the Monitor Online:
There’s growing evidence that radon exposure can be beneficial. Victor White, a PhD and assistant health professor at the University of Montana, started researching the treatment after learning that German doctors recommend radon to treat fatigue and chronic pain.
“If we control the exposure and control the dose,” he said in a 2024 video, “there may actually be some good benefits to this type of therapy.”
The Earth Angel site also includes links to several studies published on the NIH site supporting the idea that radon exposure can have beneficial effects.
At the same time, there are voices against radon exposure. Here’s a snippet from an article at sciencealert.com:
According to epidemiologist Tim Driscoll from the University of Sydney and the Occupational and Environmental Cancer Committee at the Cancer Council, radon is not to be messed with.
“If the radon’s breathed in, it’s in the lung – either in the airways or lodged in the tissue,” explains Driscoll in an interview with ScienceAlert.
“When it breaks down, alpha particles cause direct damage to the DNA of the lung cells, and increase your risk of cancer.”
Radon allegedly treats a wide variety of conditions – but there are safety limits on exposure. More from the Earth Angel site:
Radon Therapy is known to help patients with the following conditions:
Arthritis, Diabetes, Bronchitis, Circulation, Migraines, Multiple Sclerosis, Asthma, Sinus, Lupus, Carpal Tunnel, Chronic Pain, Gout, Eczema, Hepatitis C, Fibromyalgia, High Blood Pressure, and Psoriasis. Many of our guests report that they receive relief from their symptoms for 3-6 months after treatment.
The Montana Department of Health and Environmental Services “allows the practice of radon therapy in designated health mines where individuals can voluntarily spend time in radon mines for therapeutic purposes.”
You are encouraged to monitor your exposure and make informed decisions about your participation. Most guests receive 32 one-hour treatments over the span of 7-10 days.
The “Amish Appeal” of Going to the Radon Mine
I don’t know if this works, or how well it works. But I can see the appeal to Amish clientele – a chance to travel cross-country and spend time in a beautiful environment.
Doing it for health purposes gives a practical justification for the time and expense of travel. It’s a “health vacation”.
And the customers coming back again and again must believe that it helps their conditions. “We have people who will leave here now and book for next summer already because they know they won’t get a spot if they don’t book now,” said Esther Kirsch.
If you are set on radon treatment, there’s only one county in the entire country that has radon mines open to the public. And once you’re there, it’s quite inexpensive to boot. Earth Angel charges $5 per hour for entrance to the mine, or $15 for the day.
While there, there are ample opportunities for excursions, including fishing, hunting, sight seeing, and ATV rental.
Not to mention, once you’re all the way out in Montana, chances are you have a relative or friend living in one of the state’s 13 Amish settlements.
Do you know anyone who has tried radon therapy? Happy to hear your comments.
And finally, here is a video featuring the above-mentioned professor Victor White, discussing radon treatment in a video made at the Earth Angel mine:
The force is strong in placebos
This is a good example of why the lack of science courses in Amish schools can lead to belief in unproven–some might say “quack”–remedies. I’ve visited Amish schools and seen their textbooks. I’ve also visited Amish shops and seen the dozens-to-hundreds of bottles of unproven nostrums for sale.
Radon is a known carcinogen, especially radon gas, which is what the mine sitters inhale. It’s especially bad for smokers, boosting the chances of lung cancer. Where I live, radon gas often seeps into basements, and homeowners take measures to vent basement air outdoors. A radon inspection is required before you can sell your house.
The ostensibly scientific articles presented with this are in obscure journals and offer quite marginal evidence, in my estimation. The guy talking direct to camera offers only anecdotal evidence, which is not evidence in the scientific sense.
Bottom line for me is that if I were to spend a week or two in such beautiful scenery, I think my aches and pains would melt away.
All of the medical articles that I read refer to radon *baths* which is sitting in water infused with radon. Studies typically tested against a placebo of a carbon-dioxide bath, which is sitting in seltzer water (the original Seltzer, of course, being in Germany). They don’t have anything to do with sitting in a mine breathing in the gas.
The studies done by Victor White, at least as described in his video, don’t have any long-term follow up or even any tests for chromosome damage to determine if there are increased risks of cancer or leukemia.
Interesting
I find it interesting that the allopathic medical field is more than willing to subject people to radiation and chemotherapy for a long list of illnesses, but don’t want people to pursue alternative remedies. I’ve used many amish remedies and herbal medications as well as homeopathic remedies and find them to be extremely useful for my own health. There’s no big pharma involved in this, no way to make money off what the earth provides, so of course they are going to say it’s dangerous. Spending time in salt mines are also considered a healthy therapy. Before we judge what the Amish believe medically, we should try a few. A good example, I had a horse with a hoof that was infected badly, she lost more than half her hoof to a white line infection. The vet prescribed Rx medication after medication, nothing was working. My Amish farrier suggested packing it with plain sugar and honey made into a poultice. That is what healed her foot and made her sound again, none of the expensive treatments the vet prescribed did anything to heal the hoof. I appreciate that medical autonomy still exists in the county and hope that is never taken away from us as citizens by a very untrustworthy government. The entire Covid debacle brought a lot of ugly to light about our medical field. To criticise a lack of education in the Amish community as a reason they pursue alternative medical treatments is a very closed minded way of looking at this and at them. They’re a lot smarter about their health than you think they are. But stay in your box with that closed mind.
Where's the proof?
How do you know your horse’s hoof was not healed by the medications the vets prescribed but it simply took longer than you were expecting? So after using the vets medications you stuck some honey and sugar on the hoof and when the hoof got better you give the credit to the honey and sugar! How can you prove it wasn’t the very medications from the vets finally doing their job?? What you are offering is anecdotal evidence. It is not done with the scientific method where there is perhaps a double blind study done with one group of horses hooves treated with meds and the other treated with honey and sugar and even a placebo group. That’s the way science is conducted, by testing and analysis of the results in trials that can be replicated time and again by different people in different locations. So who is really staying in a box with a closed mind?
Radon Mine . . . I’m Confused
Hello All . . . Uh . . . Not sure how I feel about the name “Merry Widow” radon mine. Also, I must admit that I’m a wee bit confused here. At the top portion of this article this therapy is described as being caused by “decaying uranium.” But a bit further down, it is described as the result of “natural decay of radium.” Um, are Uranium and Radium the same thing?? Am I reading this wrong?? Erik, please clarify this for us.