In 1970 I realized that there was negligible risk from x-rays but many radiographs had poor image quality so that the risk from a false negative was significant.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Too many radiologists still believe there is a risk from a chest x-ray. Few radiologists can explain radiation to the patient in words the patient can understand.
There is no doubt that I, also, had long been aware of the problem, i.e. producing X-ray interferences, before the inherent difficulties had finally been surmounted.
Over the past 50 years we got versions of X-ray specs and space vacations, and even death rays. But the X-ray specs don't fit on your face - they're big things that screen your luggage for guns. Space vacations are real, but they cost $20 million. We have death rays, but you have to be a triple Ph.D. to play with them.
In some cases radiation reduces the incidence of cancer.
My main frustration is the fear of cancer from low dose radiation, even by radiologists.
The notion that the levels of radiation would be damaging to human life is preposterous. It's simply not true. It is a political claim more than it is a scientific claim. THAAD has been a thoroughly tested system, and it has been extremely effective.
Some scientists claim - although these claims are contentious - that they can form deadly isomers with simple X-rays and that hafnium can multiply the power of these X-rays to an astounding degree, converting them into gamma rays up to 250 times more potent than the X-rays.
My doctor is wonderful. Once, in 1955, when I couldn't afford an operation, he touched up the X-rays.
When I entered the field in July 1958 I believed what they told me about radiation risks. I spent much effort reducing the dose to patients in radiology.
For in 1900 all electromagnetic radiation of longer wavelengths was already known at least to the extent that one could not seek in it the more striking characteristics of X-rays such as, for example, the strong penetrating power.