New study calls for more radiation zaps

Listen closely and you might be able to hear them all.

“Zap!”

That’s the sound of radiation, blasting away day and night at unsuspecting Americans who’ve been put through unnecessary test after unnecessary test. Two Americans undergo CT scans every second – 72 million zaps a year from just that one type of test – and at least a third of them are completely unnecessary.

And somehow, a few experts out there think we need to zap millions more with megadoses of radiation. In fact, one new study says doctors should consider CT scans for completely healthy patients, just to check their heart risk.

Researchers studied CT scans of 5,878 people with no signs of heart disease, and found that 728 of them would actually be moved into the high-risk category based on those test results.

At the same time, 814 of the patients would be moved into the lower-risk category.

All told, more than a quarter of the patients would have had their classifications changed based on those results, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers say the extra zaps should be considered for “intermediate risk” patients – which is literally half the nation: 150 million people. And based on their results, they believe 20 million people would suddenly find themselves moved into the high-risk category.

I hope their ivory tower of academia has a lead shield!

In reality, we don’t need more scans. We need less – millions and millions less. One recent study found that CT scans lead to 29,000 cancers every single year.

That’s hardly surprising – a single CT scan on average delivers the radioactive punch of 113 X-rays, and some people get the equivalent of up to 1,000 X-rays during each scan.

If you want to talk about cancer prevention, there’s a good place to start.