Radiation Phobia

Not long ago I examined a child for possible hip disease. When I asked its young mother to bring the child back for a repeat X-ray (a perfectly routine practice), she burst into tears. By questioning her I found out she was convinced that the X-rays I had already taken were going to harm her child. She told me her child had already received too many X-rays, and that she had “read all about the damage done to people by X-rays.” This young woman was a child during the great fallout scare of the 1950s; soon she may forget about X-rays in her fear of radiation from the ABM.

The consumer advocate Ralph Nader has written (Ladies Home Journal, May 1968) that “there have long been reports that too many Americans are endangered every day by excessive doses of radiation from medical and dental X-rays. Now, however, there is evidence that at least 90 per cent of the X-radiation administered to U.S. patients is actually unnecessary. . . .”

TM

About the Author

Theodore R. Bledsoe M.D.

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Not long ago I examined a child for possible hip disease. When I asked its young mother to bring the child back for a repeat X-ray (a perfectly routine practice), she burst into tears. By questioning her I found out she was convinced that the X-rays I had already taken were going to harm her child. She told me her child had already received too many X-rays, and that she had “read all about the damage done to people by X-rays.” This young woman was a child during the great fallout scare of the 1950s; soon she may forget about X-rays in her fear of radiation from the ABM.

The consumer advocate Ralph Nader has written (Ladies Home Journal, May 1968) that “there have long been reports that too many Americans are endangered every day by excessive doses of radiation from medical and dental X-rays. Now, however, there is evidence that at least 90 per cent of the X-radiation administered to U.S. patients is actually unnecessary. . . .”