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Though Colicchio has quickly become an expert at using Ralph's vegetable scale, when we go to the register, the tab is more than $12. We put back one of the zucchini, but that cuts off only 50¢. Eric, our register guy, lets us scan a Ralph's Club card, and we're down to $11.88. Eric is a man who can feel the pain of a superstar chef on a magazine's expense account trying to pull off an arbitrary economic experiment...
When doctors first ordered a CT scan for Jen Houck's six-month-old daughter in 2003, the new mom was more worried about the risks of anesthesia (used to keep children from squirming in the machine) than of radiation exposure. In 2006 and 2007, her daughter, now 5, had two additional CT scans, 6 months apart, for what doctors initially thought was a growth abnormality. They've since determined the child was perfectly healthy. "All that, just to find out her head is bigger than normal," says the 27-year-old mother of two in Boone, North Carolina...
Exactly how much radiation is too much? Because CT scans came into vogue in the 1980s and radiation-induced cancer takes roughly 20 years to develop, long-term studies of CT scans and cancer are still under way. But scientists are already anticipating future health implications. Indeed, researchers found a population of 25,000 Japanese post-atomic-bomb survivors who were exposed to roughly the same amount of radiation as two CT scans. Based in part on those studies, the Food and Drug Administration estimates that an adult's lifetime risk of developing radiation-induced cancer from a CT scan...
Compared with adults, children are more sensitive to radiation because they have longer life expectancies and because their cells divide more rapidly, making their DNA more vulnerable to damage. A child's risk of developing a fatal cancer from one CT scan is as high as 1 in 500. Although newer machines can be adjusted to deliver up to 50% less radiation for children and small adults, a 2001 study published in the American Journal of Radiation showed that radiologic technologists (RT) rarely make those adjustments. "Changing technical factors is very easy. It just requires a little thought...
...what should you ask, if a doctor recommends a CT scan for you or your child? Brenner suggests the following: is a CT scan really necessary? Might a test that doesn't involve radiation, such as an ultrasound or MRI, do the job? In some cases, a CT scan is absolutely required - for example, for diagnosing severe head trauma or internal injuries, for acute abdominal pain, or to diagnose an existing cancer. If your doctor schedules you for a scan, call ahead to see if you can bring a flash drive. That way you can take an electronic copy...