IT HAS BECOME FASHIONABLE TO GET CT SCANS TO CHECK ONE’S
HEALTH !
F acts about X-Rays
and C
T Scans
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN KILL YOU
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THE DANGER OF X-RAYS
X-rays (roentgen rays) were discovered in
December 1895. They were introduced so rapidly into medicine that, until about
1906, they "were tried out [as therapy] on nearly every chronic disease" (MacKee,
1938, pp. 15-16). After World War I, a radiologist commented to his
colleagues about "the large number of internists who have placed fluoroscopes in
their offices, not with the idea of specializing in the work, but simply wishing
to have conveniently at hand an x-ray demonstration of their physical findings .
. The simplified apparatus which has developed from wartime practice is
conspicuous" (Hickey, 1923).
The present writer recalls that the best shoe stores in the
city where he grew up had fluoroscopes, so the customers could see through their
new shoes and see how well they fitted. Yet fluorosopes emit even higher
radiation dosage than medical x-rays. Back then, the average x-ray dose per
fluoroscopy was 65 rads (Moeller, 1953, pp. 58-59). ("Rads" are the
measure of radiation doses.)
From 1970 onward, the use of fluoroscopy, which delivers
x-rays at 2 to 20 rads per minute (!), has greatly expanded, especially during
catheterizations, surgeries, and other common procedures (Gofman, 1996).
One expert declares that medical x-rays were, and remain, a
necessary cofactor in over half the U.S. mortality rates, from cancer and
ischemic heart disease (Gofman, 1999; see box on next page).
The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility is trying to
prevent some 250,000 premature deaths per year in the U.S., by cutting average
per capita x-ray exposure in half.
Although x-rays have been widely used in medical practice for
over 100 years, in no decade have x-ray doses been measured. Indeed, for about
the first 40 years, the response of the skin (whether or not it got red!) was
the only "measure"!
Even after measurement became technically possible, it was
not done in practice—and is very rarely done today. It can be said, with
certainty, that there is no one in America who knows or could find out what his
accumulated dose of precancerous x-rays is to any part of his body.
From one type of procedure to another, the x-ray dose can
vary by 100-fold. There are only very loose estimates of how many procedures of
which type were given in any decade. A leading expert in radiology, Henry D.
Royal, M.D., estimates that average per capita x-ray doses are 2 or 3 times
higher now than they were in 1980, due to expanded use of CT (Royal, in
Veterans 200, pp. 260-261).
Even for the same procedure, on patients of the same size,
sporadic sampling programs show that x-ray doses vary widely from facility to
facility, and even within a single facility.
Even more dangerous than single x-rays are CT scans. They are
the latest way to have your body flooded with radiation. Let us consider them
next:
THE DANGER OF CT SCANS
Body scans are the current "health fad." Extensive media
attention, praising CT scans as a way to increase health and lengthen life, has
caused many perfectly healthy people to get their bodies scanned for possible
indications that, somewhere in the body, a disease may just be starting.
High-tech machines, known as CTs (computed tomography)
use high-power, wide-area body x-rays to "photograph" internal organs, producing
wafer-thin serial images that are then viewed on a computer screen.
Theoretically, CT scans are supposed to reveal cancer, heart disease,
osteoporosis, and other conditions at their earliest stages. The scans are said
not to injure you. They are fast; and, for just $700 to $1300, you can take a
look at your insides.
It may sound great; but the amount of radiation you will
receive is immense.
According to a 2000 Life Extension report, for the
doses needed to produce the CT scans, one CT chest scan is equivalent to 400
chest x-rays. A scan of the abdomen is equal to 500 chest x-rays. A scan of the
head is equivalent to 115 chest x-rays. Combine the x-rays of the chest,
abdomen, and head in the scan and you have over 1,000 x-rays. Imagine having
1,000 x-rays at one time! This is not healthy living.
Please understand that the above amounts are "effective
doses." That is, they are the minimum amount needed to produce the CT scan. In
reality, you are likely to have received a lot more radiation than that listed
above.
Frankly, this is as bad as the radioactive baths some wealthy
people were taking back in the 1920s!
Back then, you could buy radioactive bath salts. They were
supposed to be a cure for insomnia. Then, when you climbed out of the tub,
nicely irradiated for the evening, you could get in bed and apply your Radium
Ore Heating Pad—a nifty device said to be good for stomach, liver, and
spine.
Now, of course you would laugh at the suggestion that you
should take a radioactive bath;—but it is no laughing matter that you will ruin
yourself about as fast if you get a CT scan!
The FDA’s Dr. Thomas Shope has cautioned that multiple CT
scans can expose a person to radiation approaching the lower levels of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
A controversial new report estimates that if 600,000 children
get head and abdomen CT scans, 500 will get cancer from those scans.
You might wonder why there is such a serious danger here; but
the body does not forget radiation. It keeps count of every rad you get and the
amount you get, whether it be from x-rays, CT scans, fluoroscopes, dental
x-rays, etc. Most of the radiation you get stays with you for a lifetime.
Radiation damage to DNA can never be completely repaired.
Beware of any physician or medical institution that offers to
give you a "health scan" or a "body scan." CT scanners were never intended to be
used in people with no symptoms and unknown risk. There are many diagnostic
tools which do not thus endanger the body. (There are many which, themselves,
are dangerous; for example, invasive checkup tools enter the body and could
infect you with mad cow virus. See pp. 147-150 of my book, International Meat
Crisis.)
The situation is becoming so dangerous, that some experienced
radiologists are distancing themselves from whole body scans. You would not
expect to find CT critics at the American Roentgen Ray Center; yet its
president is highly critical of whole body CT screening in people who have no
symptoms. Dr. Stanley, who knows CTs inside and out, says that the damage from a
body scan might not be evident for many years. CT scans, he says, are much more
complex than simply putting a person in a scanner and reading a computer
printout.
Most people do not realize what is likely to happen after the
scan. But, according to a Wall Street Journal report, one scan center
sends 80% of those scanned to specialists afterwards. How did 80% of well people
without symptoms—suddenly discover that there is evidence that they have a
terrible disease? One director of a scan center said that he had never seen a
normal body scan. The reason for this is because of what the scan sees.
When scans are made, they involve microscopic analysis of
various organs of the body. But scans used in this way can reveal all kinds of
supposed "abnormalities," which do not really exist.
One scan expert made this comment: "When you’re looking for
abnormalities millimeter-by-millimeter, you’re going to find what appears to be
problems: flaws, pockets of odd tissue, etc.
A person may go through thousands of dollars of unnecessary
and invasive tests after a scan, including more radiation, to find out they have
nothing—except diseases induced by the radiation. It is like thinking that every
mole on your body is melanoma (skin cancer).
For example, if you do a CT scan on the kidneys of people who
have just died, in 22% of them you will find renal tumors. If you examine their
livers, you will find "cavernous angiomas." But all those so-called "tumors"
were generally not cancerous, and would rarely have developed into full-blown
cancer.
So do not listen to some medical expert who suggests that a
whole body scan would be good for you. It may be good for his wallet; but it
will not be good for you, now or later.
Ask yourself: Do I really need to undergo the equivalent of
1,000 x-rays to find out that I am not exercising, eating right, or that I need
to buy a better mattress for my aching back? —vf
Radiation from Medical Procedures in the Pathogenesis of
Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease is a massive x-ray dose-response study
written by John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., in 1999. He is Professor Emeritus of
Molecular and Cell Biology, at University of California, Berkeley.
The study’s two principal conclusions are these:
(1) Medical radiation, introduced into medicine in 1896,
became, and remains, an unnecessary causal factor in over half of the fatal
cases of cancer in the U.S. (2) Medical radiation became, and remains, an
unnecessary causal factor in over half of the fatal cases of ischemic heart
disease (coronary artery disease) in America.
From these conclusions, plus the fact that x-ray harm is
approximately proportional to accumulated x-ray dose, it follows that a very
great deal of future cancer and ischemic heart disease could be prevented by
reducing the dose-levels customarily administered during x-ray imaging
procedures, especially CT and fluoroscopy. Indeed, it is very often feasible to
get good images with half (or less) of the customary dose. Doing so, Gofman
estimates, could prevent about 250,000 premature deaths every year in the United
States.
But, as of 2005, few radiologists and radiological
laboratories seem to care. Why bother? It would take extra work to be more
careful how much radiation was given in each x-ray exposure.
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