PART II
X Rays and the
Radioactive Workplace
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6
The Use and Misuse of Medical X Rays
During 1979 congressional hearings on medical and dental X rays, Congressman Albert Gore (D-Tenn.) recalled taking his young daughter to a hospital emergency room after she had inhaled some pillow stuffing. She was having trouble breathing. Recalled Gore: "The first thing the doctor said is, ‘Let’s have an X ray.’" Gore asked the doctor if the pillow stuffing would show up on the X ray. The doctor said it would not. Gore then asked why an X ray was necessary. The doctor said it would be good to have as a base against which to compare future X rays in case some pneumonia developed. Gore decided not to allow the X ray to be taken.1
Gore’s action was a rare one. In 1979—the year of the accident at Three Mile Island—the American population received over 270 million individual X rays.2 They constituted the largest single source of human-made external radiation doses to the American public. In 1980 some $6.7 billion was spent on radiology equipment, insurance, and personnel;3 approximately 300,000 people are currently employed operating medical and dental X-ray equipment.4
Yet the doses administered by this industry were hardly insignificant. In some cases they may have harmed rather than helped their patients.
There is no question that X rays can perform enormously important medical services, and that their use has made an inestimable contribution to human health. Surgical therapy; treatment of bone fractures; location of various cancers, internal diseases, and malformations—all have become possible with the use of X rays, and all have resulted in the alleviation of pain and the saving of lives on a mass scale. As a result, X-ray diagnosis has rightfully taken its place as a vital and necessary part of medical therapy throughout the world.
The problems arise when the technology is overused and its dangers are not fully appreciated by the medical profession or the public. Every indicator now points to new warnings that caution is advised, and that there are those—particularly pregnant women and their unborn children—who have already suffered from the misuse of this medical miracle.
1. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Unnecessary Exposure to Radiation from Medical and Dental X-rays, 96th Cong., 1st sess., July 24 and 31, 1979, pp. 86-87 (hereafter cited as 1979 X-ray Hearings).
2. 1979 X-ray Hearings, p. 79.
3. Joseph D. Calhoun, "President’s Address," American Journal of Roentgenology 135 (September 1980): 636-646.
4. 1979 X-ray Hearings, p. 71.