Re: Med. Procedure Disclosure

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 12:47 PM 5/7/99 -0500, you wrote:
>
>I agree 100%. In fact, if the medical community starts doing this, it may
help
>reduce the public's fear of radiation tremendously. I think the majority of
>patients would still accept  the procedure even after being told, and
>explained
>about the procedure involving rad. material, because the procedure BENEFITS
>them.

I think the effect of common disclosure for medical uses would go even
farther. The anti-nuke, gloom&doom advocates have done a fair job of
selling the idea that radiation exposure has people dropping dead all over
the world. After people have heard of the medical use of radioactive
material often enough to realize how common it is, the anti-nuke
proclamations about "every photon's a killer" would be met with a more
challenging attitude. After all, if half or more of the people I know have
been exposed to these radioactive materials for medical reasons, and THEY
aren't dropping dead all over town, why should I believe these people who
are telling me anything radioactive is inherently evil?

===================================
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu
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