Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

X-rays Can be Dangerous



X-rays Can be Dangerous

X-rays continue to be widely used even though for over 70 years it has been
known that they cause genetic mutations and cancer.

All right, I'll bite.

<< ... smaller journals and >publications have reported cancer-causing
findings related to x-rays, but>these have failed to come to the mainstream
because it threatens the entire >nature of our current medical system. >>

The field of Radiological Protection contains many honest scientists. The
debate about health effects of small doses of ionizing radiation has been
going on now for almost 60 years. The principle that any amount of ionizing
radiation carries with it a risk of cancer formation is codified into law
but so far (at least as of five years ago) it has never been demonstrated to
be so.

<< Seventy-five percent of tested
facilities gave higher x-ray doses than were needed for clear images. >>

It is well known in the medical physics profession that physicians, often
with no training in radiological science whatsoever, will tweak the controls
of x-ray machines to improve their image, in the process often greatly
increasing the patient's dose. The politics of hospitals being what they
are, there is no one to stop them from doing this. The most senior medical
physicist has no authority over a newly hatched medical intern.

Gofman, ... challenges clinicians and policy makers to accept
the UK protection board's "precautionary principle," which says that x->ray
dosage could be reduced by about half without any reduction in >diagnostic
information.

The AAPM (Amer.Assn. of Physicists in Medicine) and its members have studied
this issue extensively and the AAPM standards, set out a generation ago,
clearly embody this principle.

could save
over 250,000 lives per year.

Highly speculative numbers. I don't believe this for a minute.

We live in a sea of ionizing radiation. Every second our body is being
bombarded by ionizing radiation from the decay of radionuclies in the rocks,
radioactive isotopes of carbon and nitrogen from the air and from cosmic
rays. Our bodies are evidently adapted to survival in this environment.
Diagnostic x-rays only add a few percent to this radiation dose.

I'm sorry that I have no access to my library on this subject.

Chris Horton

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com