I did not write this article, I'm just sharing it:
"We're zapped by more tests than any other nation
We're so radioactive that our bodies should be declared hazardous waste and sealed in lead-lined vaults -- or maybe just shot out into space.
Americans get more radiation-powered medical tests than anyone else on earth -- half of all advanced procedures performed on the entire planet, according to a recent Associated Press report.
In one outrageous instance, a New Hampshire teen was run through the CT ringer 14 times to check for kidney stones -- giving him the kind of radiation you'll only find in survivors of Hiroshima and Chernobyl, and I only wish that was an exaggeration.
I don't know what fool this kid had for a doctor, but I've never needed a CT scan to deal with a case of the stones.
Another young woman had 31 abdominal scans -- each one packing the radioactive punch of roughly 500 traditional X-rays, according to a doctor in the article.
Horrified, the doctor began searching the records in the two hospitals where he works and found at least 50 people who were given massive amounts of radiation over a three-year period.
Think that can't happen to you? Think again -- because chances are, it already has.
One study found that heart attack patients get the equivalent of 850 chest X-rays in the first few days of their hospital stay -- and that most of them were repeats of tests they'd already had.
It's so bad that CT scans are now responsible for 1 percent of all new cancer cases, with 29,000 cancers expected from the tests carried out in 2007 alone.
And that's just the beginning, because our overall radiation exposure has shot up SIX TIMES in three decades.
There's one simple reason for this, and it has nothing to do with your health. Advanced tests are expensive tests -- and each zap is worth hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. I've heard of some people who've been billed $6,000 for a CT scan in search of those kidney stones I mentioned earlier -- a zap that can usually be completed during a commercial break.
Like I've said before, it's some of the easiest money in the entire field of medicine.
Bottom line: There is no safe level of radiation. Approach any test with extreme skepticism, because most docs aren't interested in looking inside your body -- just your wallet."
WC Dougless M.D.
