[ RadSafe ] EU curbs on scans 'putting lives at risk'

[Marcel Schouwenburg]

Received through another list (srp)

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The Times reports

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1790146,00.html

EU curbs on scans 'putting lives at risk'

THE health of thousands of British patients, many of them
children, will be endangered by needless European regulations that severely
restrict the availability of MRI scans, according to senior specialists.
Leading experts on magnetic resonance imaging, including a
scientist who won a Nobel prize for pioneering the technology, warned
ministers yesterday that overzealous new EU safety rules will have
disastrous implications.

An EU directive that will become law in Britain by 2008 will ban
medical workers from standing close to MRI scanners on health and safety
grounds, even though there is no evidence that this carries any risk.

This will make illegal up to 30 per cent of the estimated
million scans conducted in Britain each year, including half of those
performed on children, denying patients access to a procedure that
transformed diagnosis and treatment of cancer, heart conditions, multiple
sclerosis and back pain.

A particularly perverse consequence of the regulations is that
many of those who would benefit from MRI scans will instead have X-rays,
which are well established to pose a much greater danger to both patients
and medical staff.

The threat has inspired a group of 12 MRI specialists to write
yesterday to Patricia Hewitt, the Health Sectretary, urging an amendment of
the directive to reduce its impact on medical scanning. The letter is 
signed
by Sir Peter Mansfield, of Nottingham University, who shared the 2003 Nobel
Prize for Medicine for his contribution to developing MRI, and Professor 
Ian
Young, of Imperial College London, who performed the world's first MRI 
brain
scans.

Other signatories include the presidents of the Royal College of
Radiologists, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, and the
British Institute of Radiology, and four Fellows of the Royal Society,
Britain's most prestigious scientific institution. Sir Peter said: "I have
been distressed to find that the future development of MRI is being stifled
by moves to regulate exposure to the electromagnetic fields associated with
MRI, using absolute exposure limits that are based on very uncertain
science. I believe that the EU directive and proposed UK legislation will
hamper clinical practice unnecessarily, stop future MRI developments in
their tracks, and damage UK industry."

The Physical Agents (Electromagnetic Fields) Directive, which
sets absolute limits for workplace exposure to electromagnetic fields, was
adopted by the EU last year and must be incorporated into member states'
national law by 2008.

Although it was designed chiefly to protect workers in
industries such as electricity generation and telecommunications there are
no exemptions for the health sector. MRI scanners do generate powerful
electromagnetic fields, but there is no evidence that these have triggered
adverse health effects.

Stephen Keevil, head of magnetic resonance physics at Guy's and
St Thomas' Hospital, in Central London, said: "Despite the huge number of
patients exposed to MRI, there is no evidence whatsoever of the adverse
health effects. It is shocking that serious consequences may result from
such shaky evidence."

The new laws will particularly affect scanning of children, and
anxious or infirm adults, who are usually sedated to keep them still.
Parents will also be prevented from comforting their children.

Research will suffer because there will be a ban on the most
powerful MRI machines that measure how brain activity is affected by
particular stimuli or tasks. The scientists have asked Ms Hewitt to press
the EU to review the directive, and to delay drafting UK legislation for at
least two years pending further research.

A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive, which is
responsible for the directive in Britain, said: "The HSE has already 
begun a
dialogue with many sectors, including the medical industry, to look at how
the directive may be implemented."

MAPPING MRI

a.. MRI works by exposing the body to a magnetic field while
radiowaves excite atoms in the body
a.. This reveals organs, tissues and tumours
a.. Doctors consider it the most important advance in medical
diagnosis of recent decades
a.. It provides more detailed images than computed tomography or
X-rays and holds no risk from radiation
a.. Developed in 1970s. Sir Peter Mansfield, of Mansfield, of
Nottingham University, and Paul Lauterbur, of Illinois University, shared
the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2003

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Marcel Schouwenburg - RadSafe moderator & List owner
Head Training Centre Delft
National Centre for Radiation Protection (Dutch abbr. NCSV)

Faculty of Applied Sciences / Reactor Institute Delft
Delft University of Technology
Mekelweg 15
NL - 2629 JB  DELFT
The Netherlands
Phone +31 (0)15 27 86575
Fax     +31 (0)15 27 81717
email   m.schouwenburg at tnw.tudelft.nl