WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.160 I know it's infuriating when anyone presents both sides of an issue 2 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:04.600 and says: "let the audience decide". 3 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:07.480 And I don't really like doing meta stuff where I talk about 4 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:11.040 the process of making videos, but I can't find any other way 5 00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:13.360 to give enough context to make this video work. 6 00:00:13.360 --> 00:00:15.160 Hence the "come for a walk with me 7 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:17.600 through a rough bit of the English countryside" GoPro camera shot. 8 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:20.080 It's important to break the format visually as well. 9 00:00:20.080 --> 00:00:23.520 I've been sharing videos from around Germany, Austria and Switzerland 10 00:00:23.520 --> 00:00:24.840 over the past couple of weeks. 11 00:00:24.840 --> 00:00:27.900 One of the first things I filmed on that trip was the 12 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:32.520 radon tunnel, the "radonstollen", in Bad Kreuznach in south-west Germany. 13 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:35.280 The video should have gone out weeks ago. 14 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:38.560 But despite filming going really well on location, despite 15 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.600 being really happy with my script and the interview at the time, 16 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:46.520 I just wasn't comfortable with it when I got back here to the UK. 17 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:51.800 Radon, or "rad-don" if you're German, is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas 18 00:00:51.800 --> 00:00:54.640 that's produced naturally by uranium decay. 19 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:59.240 All around the world, tiny tiny amounts of it seep out from 20 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:02.080 wide areas of the ground and get diluted into the atmosphere harmlessly. 21 00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:06.880 But if your house is in a particularly bad radon area, like here in Oxfordshire, 22 00:01:06.880 --> 00:01:10.360 then you can get detectors installed or tests done to check that 23 00:01:10.360 --> 00:01:14.000 radon isn't building up inside your house and exposing you to too much radiation. 24 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:17.600 Which is why I was surprised that there are a few places in the world 25 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:22.480 where people go to be exposed to radon deliberately for pain relief. 26 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:25.960 So: the radon tunnel in Bad Kreuznach. 27 00:01:25.960 --> 00:01:29.840 - It is a tunnel that was founded 1775. 28 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:34.120 People tried to find mercury here. They dug for mercury. 29 00:01:34.120 --> 00:01:42.240 They did never find mercury, but round about 110 years ago, they found radon. 30 00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:48.620 The dose is, per one hour treatment, between 30-60 thousand bequerels. 31 00:01:49.160 --> 00:01:52.600 On average you need ten treatments, one hour. 32 00:01:52.600 --> 00:01:59.720 At the end, the application will have a dose of around about 2.2 millisieverts. 33 00:01:59.720 --> 00:02:02.840 To give you an idea what is the equivalent: 34 00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:06.840 if you have, for instance, X-rays of your hip or your knee, 35 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:10.680 it is more or less the same, equivalent. 36 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:15.800 A complete CT of the complete body has about between 20 and 40 millisieverts. 37 00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:19.440 - Every medically trained person that I've talked to about radon therapy, 38 00:02:19.440 --> 00:02:22.400 they've all gone through the same three stages that I did. 39 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:27.020 First of all, complete skepticism, "oh, that sounds like a bad idea". 40 00:02:27.640 --> 00:02:30.360 Certainly, most of the world would consider deliberate exposure 41 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:34.240 to radioactive gas for pain relief as alternative medicine. 42 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:35.520 That's what I did. 43 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:36.840 And then stage two. 44 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:40.080 You look at the scientific papers and, yes, the marketing, 45 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:43.080 that talk about what limited trials there have been, and the patient 46 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:46.320 testimonials, and the theories about why it works, and the reaction becomes... 47 00:02:46.320 --> 00:02:49.860 agh, I guess maybe it's worth a look? 48 00:02:50.320 --> 00:02:53.120 But there's a conflict of interest declaration in that paper. 49 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:57.120 But it says the funders had no say in the results or the release. 50 00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:01.440 And there is almost a folk belief in some parts of the nuclear industry, 51 00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:06.080 particularly in the US, about something called "radiation hormesis", where 52 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:10.640 very small doses of radiation can have a beneficial effect, they think, 53 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:13.860 because they cause repair systems in your body to kick into action. 54 00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:17.000 But that is an idea, a hypothesis. 55 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:18.800 It's not even really a theory yet. 56 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:20.760 It's not been properly tested. 57 00:03:20.760 --> 00:03:25.000 All the major international authorities say that it's entirely unproven 58 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:28.780 and there isn't really any truly safe dose of radiation. 59 00:03:29.640 --> 00:03:34.440 And yet, radon therapy seems to work for a lot of people. 60 00:03:34.440 --> 00:03:37.480 So then you've reached the third stage: 61 00:03:37.480 --> 00:03:41.120 not knowing how to even talk about this responsibly. 62 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:42.240 That's where I'm at. 63 00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:44.360 I've met the people who run a radon tunnel. 64 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:46.000 I've talked to a patient. 65 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:49.280 I've got a duty of care to them, as I do to anyone I film with. 66 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:51.240 But I also have a duty to the audience 67 00:03:51.240 --> 00:03:54.080 and to the truth: scientific or historical or personal. 68 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:56.120 So I need to make something very clear. 69 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:58.320 This is not an endorsement. 70 00:03:58.320 --> 00:04:00.080 I think radon therapy is fascinating. 71 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:02.600 The people who run the radon spa definitely think it works. 72 00:04:02.600 --> 00:04:04.640 Certainly, most of their patients do. 73 00:04:04.640 --> 00:04:07.760 There's just enough evidence here that this unqualified skeptic 74 00:04:07.760 --> 00:04:09.320 can't write it off, not immediately. 75 00:04:09.320 --> 00:04:13.320 And the fact that there's all this infrastructure for handling radioactive gas 76 00:04:13.320 --> 00:04:17.320 as part of something that most of the world hasn't even heard of? 77 00:04:17.320 --> 00:04:21.120 Well, I think that's interesting enough to at least discuss. 78 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:24.440 - Just to make clear: it is not "wellness", it's not miracles. 79 00:04:24.440 --> 00:04:26.680 We do not promise something weird. 80 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:28.720 It is pure medicine. 81 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:32.560 It's a medical application where you need a doctor's prescription. 82 00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:39.080 And at the end, 85% of the patients, they report it helped, it worked. 83 00:04:39.080 --> 00:04:44.640 So you get rid of your medication for pain relievers for one year and more. 84 00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:50.160 It is not wellness. That's really... it must be clear. 85 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:54.280 Obviously, to get a license for this, especially in Germany, 86 00:04:54.280 --> 00:04:57.360 it's a really huge and complicated process, 87 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:03.040 and therefore we have to prove that the minimum application of the doses 88 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:09.720 is not below 30,000Bq and the maximum dose is never above 100,000Bq. 89 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:13.720 We are always, in the average, somewhere between 90 00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:18.200 30-60 thousand, which is a perfect range for the treatment. 91 00:05:18.200 --> 00:05:21.320 - There are plenty of doctors and health insurance companies in Germany 92 00:05:21.320 --> 00:05:25.200 that endorse radon therapy, but that isn't evidence for it working. 93 00:05:25.200 --> 00:05:26.680 The British National Health Service paid 94 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:31.680 for some homeopathic treatments until 2017, despite a mountain of evidence 95 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:35.040 proving that homeopathy does absolutely nothing. 96 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:38.960 Homeopathy may feel like it works for some people, but if you just 97 00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:43.240 give people a sugar pill, a placebo, and say "it'll help with your pain", 98 00:05:43.240 --> 00:05:46.840 a lot of the time feels like it does help, at least for the short term. 99 00:05:46.840 --> 00:05:49.760 The placebo effect isn't quite as magical as some folks think, 100 00:05:49.760 --> 00:05:53.440 but certainly very powerful for sensations like pain and nausea... 101 00:05:53.440 --> 00:05:57.400 the sort of things that radon therapy is intended to treat. 102 00:05:57.400 --> 00:06:02.040 But the trouble is that radon spas aren't like homeopathy or like magnet therapy. 103 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:05.640 They're not popular enough to have been comprehensively tested. 104 00:06:05.640 --> 00:06:10.500 Anecdotes are not evidence for something medical, particularly when radiation is involved. 105 00:06:11.160 --> 00:06:16.840 The warning signs of quackery, of fake medicine, are: bold claims about miracle cures; 106 00:06:16.840 --> 00:06:21.120 single interventions that claim to help wildly different conditions; 107 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:24.120 or explanations that defy the laws of physics. 108 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:25.560 It's not guaranteed to be quackery 109 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:27.760 if you've got those, of course, but those are the warning signs. 110 00:06:27.760 --> 00:06:31.440 In other parts of the world, radon therapy is much less regulated. 111 00:06:31.440 --> 00:06:37.200 In Montana, USA, say, there are old radon-filled mines that just charge admission to go sit inside. 112 00:06:37.200 --> 00:06:45.280 And some of them make wild claims about helping diabetes, gout, asthma, MS or even cancer. 113 00:06:45.280 --> 00:06:49.520 But the claims made in Germany are much more limited and specific. 114 00:06:49.520 --> 00:06:52.400 It's just for relief of chronic pain, 115 00:06:52.400 --> 00:06:55.160 and the cause of chronic pain can often be a mystery. 116 00:06:55.160 --> 00:06:57.840 And so can how to treat it. 117 00:06:57.840 --> 00:07:00.600 - The treatment doesn't work instantly, 118 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:03.680 so if you leave the tunnel, you are not instantly cured. 119 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:09.800 Patients, they report to us, normally it takes some days, up to 6-8 weeks, 120 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:11.040 when it works. 121 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:16.600 We are aware that some other tunnels worldwide, they claim they can cure anything. 122 00:07:16.600 --> 00:07:21.640 We are pain relief, pain relief from inflammatory process. 123 00:07:21.640 --> 00:07:24.080 Not more and not less. 124 00:07:24.080 --> 00:07:26.440 Normally, people think "radioactivity, 125 00:07:26.440 --> 00:07:31.480 oh, that's harmful!" but it is always the same question: it's the doses 126 00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:35.480 that makes sense, and what we here apply. 127 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:41.760 You see this equipment that is monitoring how much radon is emitted, 128 00:07:41.760 --> 00:07:46.600 and we do emit radon in that quantity 129 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:51.280 that is necessary to initiate healing processes. 130 00:07:51.280 --> 00:07:53.560 - There's one line in that big analysis paper 131 00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:56.800 that says it's really difficult to do a fully double-blind study about this. 132 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:58.640 That would be where each patient doesn't know 133 00:07:58.640 --> 00:08:02.440 if they're receiving radon or not, and neither do the staff or the doctors. 134 00:08:02.440 --> 00:08:06.440 Yes, radon is colorless and odorless, but it's always there, coming out the ground. 135 00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:11.040 You can't fool people into walking into a somehow-identical tunnel or cabin 136 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:13.920 that you've just mysteriously constructed next door to the old one, 137 00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:16.360 but that doesn't happen to have radon in it this time. 138 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:21.520 Except: in that one tunnel in Bad Kreuznach, you can turn off the radon. 139 00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:24.440 - This is absolutely unique, and to my knowledge, 140 00:08:24.440 --> 00:08:27.400 no other tunnel worldwide has the same technique. 141 00:08:27.400 --> 00:08:31.000 And that is why we are, today, absolutely safe. 142 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:35.800 As you see on the monitor, we have no radioactivity here 143 00:08:35.800 --> 00:08:38.440 besides the normal activity you have outside. 144 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:42.080 The radon gas is emitted very deep down 145 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:46.960 in that mountain and it is naturally emitted. 146 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:52.600 At the end, we just grab the gas with with a pipeline 147 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:57.040 and a kind of fan that transports it into this room. 148 00:08:57.040 --> 00:09:01.680 And we can switch it on and off in the proportion we need it. 149 00:09:01.680 --> 00:09:03.720 - That's why I was allowed to film in the treatment room. 150 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:05.400 It didn't have any radon in it. 151 00:09:05.400 --> 00:09:07.080 Not then, anyway. It hadn't been used for hours. 152 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:09.200 All the ventilation meant there was just fresh air in there. 153 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:10.840 It would absolutely be possible 154 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:15.080 to set up a proper, large-scale, double-blind study in that tunnel. 155 00:09:15.080 --> 00:09:17.440 If some university or government wanted to fund it. 156 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:19.080 If they could find enough willing patients. 157 00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:20.720 If their ethics review board 158 00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:24.520 would be willing to sign off on treating people with radioactive gas. 159 00:09:24.520 --> 00:09:29.720 And if it could be arranged that no-one, not even the staff at the tunnel, 160 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:33.600 knew whether each patient was getting radon therapy or just fresh air. 161 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:35.120 It would be difficult. 162 00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:39.480 But it's more possible there than anywhere else, and I want that trial to happen. 163 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:43.480 That's why I decided to talk about this and put the video out. 164 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:47.640 That's why I'm willing to risk giving an audience to something 165 00:09:47.640 --> 00:09:51.240 that isn't proven yet, because if that works as claimed, 166 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:55.760 even just for some people with chronic pain, it'd be brilliant. 167 00:09:55.760 --> 00:09:58.760 Very minor radiation exposure is a risk that 168 00:09:58.760 --> 00:10:02.640 a lot of people would be willing to take, clearly are willing to take, 169 00:10:02.640 --> 00:10:05.440 if they can't get pain relief any other way. 170 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:11.200 And if it doesn't work, then we probably need to stop exposing people to radiation? 171 00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:14.520 I know it's a cop-out to say "more studies are required". 172 00:10:14.520 --> 00:10:19.240 It's the weak ending to every inconclusive undergraduate paper, 173 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:21.400 but in this case, it's true. 174 00:10:21.400 --> 00:10:26.200 More studies are required, and hopefully those studies will happen soon. 175 00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:30.920 Because I would love to go back to a radon spa in a few years' time 176 00:10:30.920 --> 00:10:32.860 and follow up with the proof.