Last year there was a horrible radiation overdose in California, where a CT technologist gave a 23 month old child 151 scans in just over an hour. A hearing to revoke the tech’s license is just underway and the testimony so far gives little indication exactly how it happened.
Common household objects killing you with radiation is becoming quite a theme on this blog. We’ve had radioactive recliners and radioactive drywall. It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before we reached the silent killer: granite countertops.
The answer is no; at least not from radiation.
The Sarasota Herald Tribune is reporting that testing by three agencies, the Florida Department of Health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, on drywall manufactured in China has found no traces of radioactivity. Why was it being tested in the first [...]
I have taken a quick listen to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee field hearing in Philadelphia on Monday (you can find the mp3 files here, along with witness statements). Nothing came out that was not already in the NRC report. However, Sen. Specter indicated that a hearing of the full committee in Washington [...]
The Philadelphia VA hospital story has really taken off. Usually when there is a high profile radiation therapy accident, like with the unfortunate Lisa Norris, the interest dies off fairly quickly. However, in this case, the interest seems to be just beginning to ramp up.
A story that had been brewing for months has finally broken into the
mainstream media; the New York Times reports on a series of botched procedures at a V.A. hospital in Philadelphia. While regulatory agencies had
some clue that things were awry, the clinic was allowed to continue
operating on patients for six years before it was shut [...]
One star Mondays is moving to a biweekly format since I didn’t want every 3rd post on this blog to be horrible music. In the meantime, here is a scary story from the Denver Post.
As if there weren’t enough side effects from radiation to worry about, a new one has been discovered by the [...]
Recently, some doctors and radiation biologists have expressed concern about the increase in the number of CT scans given to the general public and the increased dose that results. A 2007 paper by David Brenner and Eric Hall, two very highly respected experts in the biological effects of radiation, sparked a great deal of [...]