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Cancer increasing with increased use of medical radiation

“The problem is that there’s an increased cancer risk even from little amounts of radiation that we don’t feel,”

High-tech screening tests: Too much radiation?  San Francisco News – abc7news.com  March 25, 2010.

Carolyn Johnson

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The Food and Drug Administration is launching a drive to reduce the levels of radiation being used on patients in U.S. hospitals. The agency will hold hearings in Washington next week, focusing on powerful new imaging technology. The devices can often spot disease early, but critics worry their popularity is leading to an overuse of radiation…….

“Definitely the convenience is at the cost of radiation, and that’s the problem,” says Dr. Rita Redberg, director of cardiology at the University of California at San Francisco. She is also among a vocal group of medical experts who argue that Americans are receiving too much radiation; partially, from a new wave of high-tech screening tests such as the coronary-calcium scan, which the president also received on his heart, and which also employs a powerful CT-scanner.

“So when you go through one of these virtual colonoscopies, or coronary-calcium scans, you don’t realize you’ve just had 50 to 100 to 200 chest x-rays becasue,” says Redberg…..concern centers around the increased frequency of radiological screening over the past decade. Last year alone, an estimated 70 million Americans underwent an exam that involved at least some level of radiation.

“The problem is that there’s an increased cancer risk even from little amounts of radiation that we don’t feel,” says Redberg. “So a CT-scan here and a CT-scan there, and they start to add up and you’ve increased your chance of getting cancer.”…….

The FDA hearings we mentioned will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. They will focus on three areas  CT-scans, nuclear medicine studies, and fluoroscopy.

Are we getting too much radiation from high-tech screening tests? – 3/25/10 – San Francisco News – abc7news.com

March 27, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, radiation, radioactive