Free Enterprise Radon Health Mine, just outside Boulder in western Montana, is the state's oldest mine that offers exposure to radioactive radon gas as a therapeutic treatment. Other forms of radiation treatment, under the supervision of doctors, are getting renewed attention from researchers, but they caution such defunct mines offer unregulated radiation far different from what doctors would provide. (Katheryn Houghton/Kaiser Health News)
July 29, 2021
Stories this photo appears in:
Doctors caution against pilgrimages to radon-filled Montana mines
Twice a year, Brian Tichenor makes the 1,200-mile drive each way from his home in Kansas to a defunct uranium mine in Montana, where he takes an elevator 85 feet below the surface to sit amid radioactive radon gas to ease the pain from his chronic eye condition.