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of breast cancer were increased by X-ray doses as low as 1.6 In the 1940s and 1950s, many shoe stores installed fluoroscopic rem." In 1977, Thomas Mancuso and others reported that work- (X-ray) shoe-fitting machines. By 1949, a study had shown that ers at the Hanford plutonium facility were dying of cancers from shoe-fitting machines were giving children high doses of radia- radiation doses as low as 3 rem, accumulated over many years.” tion. Again, the ICRP showed no interest in the subject. (The worker safety standard at the time was 5 rem per year.) Morgan and his colleagues calculated that medical X-rays Karl Morgan says these studies threw the nuclear industry into accounted for 90 per cent of all radiation from human-created a panic. "Concerned that its very existence was threatened if the sources.”’*! Morgan showed in 1963 that the average US citizen public believed that there was an increased risk of cancer at these was receiving each year about as much radiation from medical X- low levels of exposure, the nuclear-industrial complex determined rays as from natural background sources. In other words, the use that it would respond vigorously to all challengers," Morgan of medical X-rays was doubling the average person's exposure to reports in his autobiography.” As a result, "...health physics in radiation in the US. Morgan's point was that the same benefits recent decades has sacrificed its integrity. Certainly there remain could be achieved at much lower doses by using up-to-date equip- some true professionals who will not shade the truth to appease ment and techniques. The medical community, for the most part, their employers, but they are in the minority," Morgan said in turned a deaf ear. 1999.™ For many years, Morgan and others wrote about the hazards of The ICRP turned a blind eye to other problems affecting public excessive and unnecessary radiation exposures from medicine and health: excessive exposures from medical dentistry—an effort he describes as "twenty and dental X-rays. Early in the 1950s, a years of frustrating failures". In his autobiog- series of studies had shown that X-rays were raphy, Morgan says it was "a highlight of my more dangerous than previously known. In Gofman believes that life's work"*? when President Lyndon 1950, H.C. March showed that radiologists . Johnson signed Public Law 90-602, the were nine times as likely as other physicians medical X-rays are the "Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act to die of leukaemia.?* In 1956, Alice major cause of cancer of 1968", which set minimum federal stan- Stewart showed that a single X-ray of a foe- . . dards for X-ra equipment (see tus in the womb would donble the likelihood (including breast cancer) ww. fda govledsi/tadhitht-ctenmery hwy, of childhood leukaemia.” ; and heart disease in However, the law can do nothing to curb In his 1999 autobiography, *’ Morgan unnecessary and excessive X-ray exposures, refers to his 1994 description of the ICRP's the US. which still occur routinely. failure to concern itself with excessive and unnecessary X-ray exposures from diagnos- tic procedures:* ..lt was like running into a brick wall every time I raised the ques - tion of excessive and unnecessary X-ray diagnostic exposures... I soon became convinced that the subject of excessive medical expo - sure was a no-no with ICRP because ICRP was founded under the auspices of the International Congress of Radiology (ICR) and radiologists did not want any restraints or interference in their use of diagnostic X-rays. I had the uncomfortable feeling that ' : MEDICAL X-RAYS, CANCER AND Gofman's work is HEART DISEASE For the past 20 years, another i - careful, thorough and tant scientist concemed about excessive clearly written, so most exposure to X-rays has been Dr John ini Gofman. In his autobiography, Morge of the health physicists describes Gofiman this way." of this world probably .. John Gofman, a scientist who cannot be expected to take it lying down. [holds] degrees in both chemistry and medicine. Along with Glenn Seaborg, Gofman co-discovered uranium-233, and he also was the first one to isolate plutonium. In spite of these achievements, Gofman has yet to receive the recognition due him; in my there was a serious conflict of interest with ICR sponsorship opinion, he is one of the leading scientists of the twentieth of ICRP... Conflict of interest seems to be a contagious and century. virulent disease. For 20 years or more, Gofman has been publishing studies of In the mid-1960s, Morgan's division of the Oak Ridge the hazards of low-level radiation. His latest book fills 700 pages Laboratory studied the X-ray doses being received by US children addressing this hypothesis: "Medical radiation is a highly impor- as a result of a mass chest X-ray program. Starting in the 1950s, tant cause (probably the principal cause) of cancer mortality in the portable X-ray machines in special trucks were brought to United States during the twentieth century." In other words, schools, and hundreds of thousands of US children were given Gofman believes that medical X-rays are the major cause of can- chest X-rays. The Oak Ridge study found that each of these chil- cer (including breast cancer) and heart disease in the US. dren was receiving an X-ray dose of 2 to 3 rem; Morgan knew Gofman's work is careful, thorough and clearly written, so most of this was excessive because workers at the Oak Ridge Laboratory the health physicists of this world probably cannot be expected to were getting a dose of only 0.015 rem from a chest X-ray. In take it lying down. other words, children were getting a dose of X-rays 130 to 200 John Gofman is a medical doctor with a PhD in nuclear and times as high as the dose needed to produce an adequate X-ray physical chemistry. He is Professor Emeritus of Molecular and film—not to mention that most of the children did not need a Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a chest X-ray at all. (The mass X-raying of US children was member of the faculty at the University of California Medical stopped by a campaign led by Morgan, Rosalie Bertell, Irwin School at San Francisco. During his long career, he has pursued Bross and others.)” two separate fields of research: heart disease, and the health the US. careful, thorough and clearly written, so most of the health physicists of this world probably cannot be expected to take it lying down. 36 + NEXUS Gofman believes that Gofman's work is AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2000