The pros and cons of medical radiation

NYTimes.com : Americans today receive far more medical radiation than ever before. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy. Without a doubt, radiation saves countless lives, and serious accidents are rare.But patients often know little about the harm that can result when safety rules are violated and ever more powerful and technologically complex machines go awry. To better understand those risks, the New York Times has examined thousands of pages of public and private records and interviewed physicians, medical physicists, researchers and government regulators.It found that while this new technology allows doctors to more accurately attack tumors and reduce certain mistakes, its complexity has created new avenues for error—through software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures, or inadequate staffing and training. When those errors occur, they can be crippling.