Re: A LNT Experience

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

Von: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM <RuthWeiner@AOL.COM>

An: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

Datum: Mittwoch, 17. April 2002 04:07

Betreff: A LNT Experience





>I have just had the following experience that has brought home to me once

>again the poor risk choices forced on us by slavish adherence to the linear

>non-threshold theory:

>

>I have a very painful abscessed tooth, and went to see my dentist today for

a

>root canal.  He took an x-ray, and on the first x-ray really couldn't see

the

>abscess, so he took a second x-ray, which showed it somewhat more clearly,

>but he still had to open up the tooth to make surethat it wasn't a sinus

>infection of some sort  (it was an abscess and yes I just had a root

canal).

>The tie-in with the LNT is that, because of his patients' fears of cancer,

he

>uses extremely fast film, which does not have the definition of the

slightly

>slower film.  So he had to take the second x-ray (which sort of defeated

the

>advantage of the lower definition film anyway) and then had to take a

chance

>drilling through a crown into a healthy tooth.



------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ruth,



In Austria medical doctors need not bother about LNT - all applications of

ionising radiation in medicine is exempted from the radiation protection law

and the ordinance. It is the responsibility of the medical doctors to use

ionising radiation for the benefit of the patient. Otherwise no x-rays and

no nuclear medicine would be possible. So it might not be surprising that I

once asked the doctor for the dose I received by an x-ray investigation,

that he answered, "It is very small, you need not bother.". I would rather

argue, that the use of the low definition film is unacceptable, because it

causes a (low) dose, without giving any result - therefore a dose which is

unnecessarily delivered and therefore in strict contradiction to radiation

protection principles, because no benefit is associated with it!!!!!



Best regards,



Franz









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