[ RadSafe ] Facts: breast cancer, "radioactive wires implanted", "localized seeds"

[Flood, John]

patients not being told -

15 years ago it was common for clinics to tell patients nothing about the use of radioactive material in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.  Today, it is dramatically less common, but not unheard of.

The medical use of radioactivity has blossomed in recent years (a real growth industry), and clinics have gotten much, much better at informing patients about it.  But we still see the infrequent case of a gate alarm caused someone blissfully unaware that s/he is the cause.  I agree that the medical community has a problem with a public that doesn't understand a lot of this, and I find myself unable to be too critical of a provider who skips an explanation after a series of patients that were either actively clueless or aggressively hostile about the use of radioactivity.  Nevertheless, it still happens.

Bob Flood