This is from an article by Elizabeth Cohen, a senior medical correspondent for CNN. She was in line at an airport waiting to be porno-scanned when she saw, for the first time, a man make the choice to opt out and be groped instead. During an ensuing conversation she discovered he was an MD – in fact, he was an oncology fellow at a big cancer center. Elizabeth writes:
I was next in line. I’d just watched a doctor at M.D. Anderson, a top cancer hospital, opt out because he wanted to avoid radiation. Does that mean I should, too? I had a second to make a decision. I decided to opt out, too.
This incident fired her curiosity, and so she did an informal survey of doctors and the choices they make regarding radiation shots from the government. Here are some of the snippets from Docs:
“This is a total body scan — not a dental or chest X-ray,” he wrote to me. “Total body radiation is not something I find very comforting based on my medical knowledge.”
…”There is really no absolutely safe dose of radiation,” says Kim, chair of the department of neurosurgery at the University of Texas Medical School. “Each exposure is additive, and there is no need to incur any extra radiation when there is an alternative.”
…Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, takes a pat-down instead of going through a scanner when he travels. He says he’s concerned about whether the machines are calibrated and inspected properly.
