Marshall Brain's Blog

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Something else to worry about #5

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Everyone knows that X-rays and CT scans can be beneficial, but they also have a downside. According to this article, about 0.9% of new cancers discovered in the U.S. are caused by X-rays. There are two amazing statistics in the article:

• 5,695 of the new cancers discovered in the U.S. every year can be linked to diagnostic X-rays.
• This means that there are about 630,000 new cancers diagnosed in the U.S. every year.

According to this page: "In the United States, men have about a 1 in 2 lifetime risk of developing cancer. The risk for women is about 1 in 3."

This page has some interesting stories about the "x-ray martyrs" in the early 1900s.

The next time the dentist says, "Hey, it's time to take take your annual X-rays", perhaps the question to be asked is, "Is that really necessary?"