One Easy and Important Step You Can Take
Toward Avoiding Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease:
An Affordable Summary of New Evidence about X-Rays.
By Egan O'Connor, Editor of CNR Books. February 2000.
-You
can improve your chance of avoiding Cancer and Coronary
Heart Disease by avoiding unnecessarily high doses of x-rays
(medical and dental).
-The
undeniable benefits of x-ray procedures can be obtained,
demonstrably, at much lower doses than the doses commonly in use
today. (See Radiation from Medical Procedures (RMP),
Chapter 1,
Part 9, Every Benefit of
Medical Radiation: Same Procedures, Lower Dose-Levels, pp.17-18.)
-The
task is to convince x-ray-givers that it is important
to reduce their x-ray doses because you care --- even if
some of them presently think that it is silly to care. (For a
common comparison between x-rays and airplane trips see
Are X-Ray Procedures Equivalent,
in Extra Radiation Dose, To Taking an Airplane Trip?.)
-What
can convince x-ray-givers? For the first time, you can
give your x-ray-givers the professional and affordable
32-page Executive Summary from the
699-page scientific study entitled Radiation
from Medical Procedures in the Pathogenesis of Cancer and Ischemic
Heart Disease, which was published in November
1999. The Executive Summary of RMP (Radiation from Medical
Procedures) makes it unnecessary for you to argue
with a physician, dentist, or x-ray technologist:
-"This
document explains why I want the lowest possible doses
and why I want the actual entrance doses measured during my exam
--- not calculated from a book --- and why I want the measured
doses recorded in my medical record." If the x-ray-giver starts
to argue that the hazard is trivial, you need only reply that
the booklet is the best way for him/her to understand the brand
new evidence and the basis of your concern about
unmeasured x-ray doses.
-On
the first tries, you will fail to get a measured dose,
because almost no facility will have the devices for
measurement on hand. But at least the x-ray-giver will be on
notice that he/she needs to take special care with your
exam. That is "One Easy and Important Step" to help yourself
avoid Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease. We will make
additional suggestions in the future.
-If
patients will put a million copies of this booklet into
the hands of x-ray-givers, while asking for measured and recorded
x-ray doses, then x-ray-givers will recognize that doses matter
to patients and that x-ray-givers need to offer credible
evidence of the specific doses they give you. Measurements are
the key to achieving lower doses. Only measurements can reveal
progress or failure.
-You
cannot predict when someone in your family may need
x-rays. Every year in the USA (where the population is now 270
million people), about 200 million medical x-ray exams, plus
about 100 million dental x-ray exams, are taken by
patients. The source for these figures is the 1993 report of the
United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation (UNSCEAR 1993).
-Families
who want to receive the benefits of x-rays,
without receiving an unnecessarily high chance of x-ray-induced
Cancer or Coronary Heart Disease, will have copies of the
Executive Summary of RMP at home --- ready for delivery during
their next medical and dental appointments.