"The radiation you get from x-ray, CT, and nuclear imaging is ionizing radiation... Ionizing radiation can damage DNA... The result is DNA mutations that may contribute to cancer..." - Harvard
An evidence-based investigation into diagnostic imaging. Critical research on radiation-induced DNA damage, false positive rates, and the true impact of mammography on breast cancer mortality.
Medical Scans Use Ionizing Radiation, Which Can Damage DNA & Cause Cancer
The radiation you get from x-ray, CT, and nuclear imaging is ionizing radiation — high-energy wavelengths or particles that penetrate tissue to reveal the body’s internal organs and structures. Ionizing radiation can damage DNA, and although your cells repair most of the damage, they sometimes do the job imperfectly, leaving small areas of “misrepair.” The result is DNA mutations that may contribute to cancer years down the road…
Don’t ask for a CT scan just because you want to feel assured that you’ve had a “thorough checkup.” CT scans rarely produce important findings in people without relevant symptoms. And there’s a chance the scan will find something incidental, spurring additional CT scans or x-rays that add to your radiation exposure.
Evidence of Harm: Overview
Cellular Damage: How Radiation Impacts DNA
Ionizing Radiation Causes DNA Damage and Cancer
Mammograms: Radiation, Mortality, & False Positives
“Research Demonstrates This Test Does Not Reduce Your Risk of Death from the Disease”
Randomized, 25-Year Follow Up of 89,000 Women: Mammography Didn’t Reduce Death from Breast Cancer
Untreated DCIS: “75–90% Never Develop Invasive Cancer Over 10–20 Years”
Randomized Trials: Mammography Does Not Reduce Cancer Death. Increases Distress & Unnecessary Treatment.
New England Journal of Medicine: 31% Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis
“Research has Revealed How Dangerous Mammograms Are”
Increase in Breast Cancer is Caused Not from Increased Diagnosis, but from Mammography Radiation
Swiss Medical Board Cited Research and “Recommended No More Systemic Mammograms”
“A Class Action Settlement on Par with Smoking, Talcum Powder, or Asbestos is Not Inconceivable.”
CT Scans & Alternatives
JAMA: CT Screening Overdiagnosis and No Drop in Late-Stage Disease or Mortality
CT Exposure Increased Cancers with “Clear Dose-Response Relationships”
CAC Scores Involve CT Scans, Radiation Exposure and Do Not Save Lives
In the ICU, Point of Care Ultrasound More Helpful, Less Risky &
Harmful than Chest X-rays, CT Scans, & Formal Ultrasound Exams
Contrast Agents in MRIs and CTs: Toxicity
The Injected Agents Used for “Contrast Imaging” Can Cause Serious Chronic Disease, Kidney Injury & Fatal Brain Damage
Prenatal Ultrasounds: Fetal Health Impacts
Ultrasound: On Creating Harm, Generating Fear and New Business”
“Trials in China that Gave Ultrasound… Reveal Clear Damage to Fetal Tissues”
Defensive Medicine & Financial Conflict
“96% Ordered Imaging, Tests, Referrals, or Hospital Admissions to Avoid Possible Malpractice Liability”
Doctors with a Financial Conflict Ordered Twice as Many Scans
Doctors with a Financial Conflict of Interest Ordered More Images that Had Negative Results
Marketing vs. Reality
JAMA: “30% or More of Imaging Examinations May Be Unnecessary”
American College of Radiology, 2023: “There is No Proof that Full-Body Screening Provides Meaningful Health Benefits Relative to its Costs”
“The Screened Do Not Live Longer”
JAMA: Cancer Screenings Prolong Life Zero to Three Months, Meta-Analysis Finds
Cellular Damage: How Radiation Impacts DNA
Ionizing Radiation Causes DNA Damage and Cancer
“Awareness of the carcinogenic role of ionizing radiation (such as X-rays) has emerged gradually over the last century, but although the mechanism is now very well known (it involves DNA breaks), the level of risk remains unknown to most physicians… John Gofman, a physician and physicist… had been commissioned by the US Atomic Energy Commission to assess the risks of radiation… The findings presented in his book… were that 75% of breast cancers in American women were related to medical radiation… After Gofman’s work, other studies have reported risks in agreement with his finding. In a study from 2019, a single abdominal CT scan in girls is associated with a 3-fold increase of breast cancer risk… According to Gofman, medical radiation could be not only a major cause of cancer, but also coronary disease.”
See also:
Breast cancer incidence as a function of the number of previous mammograms: analysis of the NHS screening programme; “DNA damage, and particularly the formation of DNA double strand breaks, is the main factor in the carcinogenic action of X-rays.”
DNA Damage Produced by Ionizing Radiation in Mammalian Cells (1988); “This chapter provides a framework for understanding the way permanent heritable damage in cellular DNA results from exposure to ionizing radiation.”
The role of double-strand break repair — insights from human genetics (2006); “Several human congenital disorders with defects in damage-response mechanisms to double-strand breaks have been described. These include… ataxia [brain damage]… Fanconi anaemia [bone marrow failure]… These disorders are associated with a… range of clinical features that… include immunodeficiency, development delay and microcephaly [brain growth failure], cancer development and premature ageing.”
Oxidative Stress: Harms and Benefits for Human Health; “There has been an extensive effort to understand the physical and molecular cellular response that follow the exposure to ionizing radiation. It is well recognized that damage to DNA operated by generation of radicals that indirectly cause DNA double-strand beaks is the most severe kind of damage induced…”
Mammograms: Radiation, Mortality, & False Positives
“Research Demonstrates This Test Does Not Reduce Your Risk of Death from the Disease”
“Mammograms, used to detect breast cancer, employ ionizing radiation that carries a risk of developing cancer; 3D mammography, also called breast tomosynthesis, uses more radiation to achieve sharper images. Data show after 10 mammograms you have a 50% to 60% risk of receiving a false positive result, potentially necessitating further testing with more radiation or even treatment. You may be able to prevent 75% to 90% of breast cancers through lifestyle changes, such as reducing exposure to hazardous toxins, seeking out organic products, severely reducing refined sugar and fructose, and limiting protein.”
Randomized, 25-Year Follow Up of 89,000 Women: Mammography Didn’t Reduce Death from Breast Cancer
“Annual mammography in women aged 40-59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care…”
Untreated DCIS “75–90% never develop invasive cancer over 10–20 years”
“The relative risk for all-cause mortality in well-conducted trials is 1.01 — no significant difference between the screened and the unscreened. What screening does find, reliably, is ductal carcinoma in situ. DCIS was a rare diagnosis before the 1980s. It now accounts for a significant proportion of all screen-detected breast cancers. Studies following women whose DCIS was missed at biopsy show that 75–90% never develop invasive cancer over 10–20 years.¹⁸ The condition is treated nonetheless — with surgery, radiation, and in some cases chemotherapy. Nearly half a million women have been diagnosed and treated for DCIS since widespread mammography began.¹⁸ The cancers they were treated for would, in the great majority of cases, never have harmed them. Up to 60% of women who undergo annual mammograms for a decade experience at least one false positive.¹⁸ Each false positive triggers additional imaging, biopsy, and the psychological burden of waiting. A single mammogram delivers radiation equivalent to approximately 100 chest X-rays, concentrated on compressed breast tissue.¹⁸ Over a decade of annual screening that is 1,000 chest X-rays’ worth of ionising radiation aimed at the tissue the screening is supposedly protecting. A 2012 BMJ study found that women with BRCA variants who underwent mammograms before age 30 had an increased risk of developing breast cancer compared to those who did not.¹⁹
