It’s because they’re required to have exposure as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA). This is actually going away in the US because it’s not actually based on good science. Low amounts of radiation exposure is actually not bad, and it’s not cumulative like it’s normally treated. Even safe levels of radiation exposure must be avoided if possible, even when it increases costs or other hazards.
Video on the change of regulation around ALARA and linear no-threshold (LNT) radiation measurement:
(But also, they’re being exposed frequently. The patient is only once, or a few times.)
Hey siri, what is cumulated exposure
This is the same reason the bartender won’t do shots with you.
Depends on the bartender…
Shots are bristling with ionizing radiation
As is tradition the phrase “know your dose” comes to mind.
Got a headache, take an ibuprofen. Take the whole bottle and it’ll be your last headache lol
EDIT for those that don’t know: It’ll be your last headache because you’ll DIE. Don’t exceed the recommended dose, it’s bad m’kay.
Have to remember that it’s not safe if you get it as often as the doctor gives it.
Ayup. To draw a parallel: One vial to take a blood sample is fiiiine.
You do several hundred and you dead
If you manage to do several hundred I’ll actually be a little impressed.
The doctor just goes “its all radiation anyway! So were gonna use the new gamma ray”
Tldr your doctor is doctor doom
The dose makes the poison
“They keep trying to convince me that skydiving is safe but the pilot always stays in the plane."
That guy, probably.
How often do you get an xray? How often does an xray tech perform an xray?
They are safe with the frequency a normal person is exposed to them. They are not as safe if you are spending your entire work day standing next to the machine.
I’m not a fan of memes that are predicated on a mischaracterization of medical practices as they can lead to people making uninformed and perilous decisions about their health. If your doctor recommends an xray, you probably need an xray.
I spent a year in the hospital. I needed to get like 2 x-rays and CT scans a week. After that, none of my doctors want me in a CT machine or x-ray anymore. I get MRI scans done instead.
How often do you get an xray?
You sound super fun to sit next to at a comedy show.
“my doctor always makes me get vaccines but I never see him take one”
“my dentist recommends toothpaste with fluoride in it but she refuses to brush in front of me”
You realize that these kinds of statements are not comedy to the dumbest people you know - they’re bold realizations that the man really had been hiding some shit from you.
and then they elect Marjorie Taylor Greene. They elect Lauren Boebert. They elect Randy Fine.
Rather than “your tax dollars have been funding an apartheid state after its intelligence agency blackmailed a shitload of our oligarchs with pedophilia which is now doing a genocide as it, and those oligarchs, take away all possibility of using technology to communicate freely ever again in Fascist takeover of the western world”, these are the people who looked at that evidence and went “hurr durr Jews bad”
These are the people who said “Ivermectin for President!”
These are the people who said “ICE is doing what I would do”
These people are all around us, stop making them worse. They feed off disinformation in meme format because it’s all their feeble minds can process. Stop feeding them.
Do better.
Does that mean long-form text-based misinformation shitposts are okay?
Only when written as A Modest Proposal.
Chances are they are too polite to talk during the show
I like to think I am, though I’d probably leave a comment in the review if they were spreading medical misinformation on the name of comedy or freedom or something and I wasn’t expecting it going in.
You sound like you got lost trying to go to a comedy show, ended up at the Mothership on Schaub night, and laughed because everyone else was laughing.
I think a good doctor wouldn’t even say it’s safe. It’s more accurate to say: the potential harm of a single x-ray is small/negligible, and the benefit of being able to correctly diagnose you and create an informed treatment plan is well worth that risk.
Crossing the street isn’t completely safe, but if you need to get to the other side, you take that risk because it’s worth it. But you shouldn’t cross the street willy nilly for no reason, that would be stupidly dangerous. It’s kind of like that.
There’s a current disagreement about radiation dosing policy right now, too. One side things the current approach is fine, the other believes that we are so overly conservative that we are wasting a lot of resources avoiding doses that are inconsequential. This is most relevant if we want to build and operate more nuclear reactors (e.g. for power), but it might also change some x-ray practices.
But, there are few things that are absolutely safe. You can slip, fall, and die in the shower; you can “poison” yourself by drinking too much water. When a medical professional requests an x-ray, they believe the risk is worth the reward.
What is the argument against nuclear reactors and dosage?
Are you saying that people think they get any elevated radiation dosage around a nuclear power plant at all?
I’m not the OP, nor am I very good at succinctly summarizing what’s in my head in a way that I’m confident would do the topic justice.
The specific term you probably want to look up is “Linear no threshold”.
I think the video Kyle Hill did several months ago though covers the topic very well though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzdLdNRaPKc
I have some small nitpicks on how exactly he argued a couple of his points, but his over all point seems reasonable.
Well, I think the general public probably is a bit confused about that. But, I think the disagreement is on the exposure of workers, and the practices around that.
IIRC, nuclear reactors for power have surprisingly high operating costs, even tho the fuel costs are quite low, and most of those costs are radiation controls. (And, no one is saying we need to eliminate controls, just dial them back a bit based on better science of how radiation affects humans.)
One might say the effects are…
cumoolative
One X-ray is fine, several a day is not.
Going to a bar and having a shot of booze won’t really harm you, but if you’re the bartender and have to have a shot every time a customer does, it will.
They do it all day everyday. That would be bad over the years. Plus any unnecessary exposure to any additional radiation should just be avoided. If the patient had any other way of getting the same results im sure that would be the preferred method but its all we got and 1 dose is really nothing in the scheme of things.
I do remember a story long ago in the early days where someone got a faulty one and everytime they turned it on for xrays these people were hit with so much radiation they could taste it. Nobody believed them and it was so bad that side effects came quick enough to figure out this machine was faulty. If i find it ill link it here. Very interesting and awful situation.
Edit: found it the Therac-25 system. It sometimes became faulty and dosed people with 250 times the amount it should have. They swore up and down there is no way the system was faulty until it was finally proven to be it.
ITT: people explain the humorous cow picture meme unprompted
Poe’s law, this image can be and has been used by anti-science conspiracist.
