The U.S Food and Drug Administration is warning dental and veterinary professionals to not purchase or use certain potentially unsafe hand-held dental X-ray units. The FDA is concerned that these devices may not be safe or effective and could expose the user and the patient to unnecessary and potentially harmful X-rays.

The units, sold online by manufacturers outside the United States and directly shipped to U.S. customers, have not been reviewed by the FDA and do not meet FDA radiation safety requirements. The Washington State Department of Health alerted the FDA after tests on a device purchased online revealed it did not comply with X-ray performance standards.

As a result, FDA is investigating the extent of the problem and notifying state regulatory authorities, dental professional organizations and other health organizations about the safety risks. To date, no adverse events have been reported.

A hand-held dental X-ray unit is a small, portable device that is intended for dental X-ray examinations. All units that have been cleared by the FDA bear a permanent certification label/tag, a warning label, and an identification (ID) label/tag on the unit.  Use of these devices requires a prescription from a licensed practitioner.

“Health care professionals using these devices should verify they are purchasing and using those that have been reviewed and tested to meet FDA’s standards,” said Steve Silverman, director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

To ensure this, users should:

• Verify the presence of required labels on the device.
• Ask vendors whether the device has been reviewed and cleared by the FDA.
• Access the FDA Medical Device Approvals and Clearances searchable database to verify that the X-ray unit has been cleared by the FDA.
• Contact their state regulatory agency if they become aware of a device that may be hazardous or does not meet the FDA’s requirements.

The FDA will continue to monitor this problem and keep the public informed as new information becomes available.

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An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services.

This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.

Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.

The IJHS article is available at http://www.radiation.org.

Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores.  Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S.  The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water):  Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200);Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).

Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, said: ”This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal.  It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world.  Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation.”

Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters.

Internist and toxicologist Janette Sherman, MD, said: ”Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.”

Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor, Western Michigan University, and contributing editor of ”Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” published by the NY Academy of Sciences in 2009, and author of ”Chemical Exposure and Disease and Life’s Delicate Balance – Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S.  In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. are about 14,000.

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A new TSA screening procedure, introduced late last year, has continued to outrage Americans over what some suggest is a violation of civil liberties.  Disgruntled passengers have been sharing their stories of humiliation and lawmakers are starting to hear the complaints.

The new body scanners have also been referred to as “porno scanners”, because the images displayed reveal the passenger as nude.  These body scanners have caused many people to feel concerned over privacy issues.  Transportation Security Administration states that the scanned images are blurry and black and white.  They report that the images are never saved.  However, the body scanners are able to save and send pictures. There are also health concerns.  The body scanners deliver a low level of radiation to passengers.  It is believed that they deliver 20 times more radiation than what was originally reported.  Although the chance of developing skin cancer from the body scanner is very low, it would be higher in children and people with gene mutations.  There are currently 134 body scanners at 38 airports in the United States.  This year, TSA expects to add 1,000 additional units at airports all over the country.

For those that opt out of the scanner or for health reasons cannot use the scanner, the individuals must submit to an “enhanced pat-down.”  These pat-downs seem worse than the porno scanners.  TSA agents run their hands up and down passengers’ legs and into the groin area.  Women’s breasts are pinched and groped.  Those are the techniques that TSA admits to.  Passengers claim that some TSA agents actually put their hand down individuals’ pants.  TSA claims that same-sex agents take a passenger into a private screening room for the pat-downs but many passengers say this isn’t true.

Lawmakers have been reacting to the public outrage.  In New Hampshire, a Republican state representative has introduced a bill that would make it illegal to touch or view someone’s private parts without their consent.  In California, the district attorney in San Mateo County, Steve Wagstaffe, has stated he would take any complaints about the enhanced pat-down seriously.  Wagstaffe has said that if his office receives any complaints about the screeners touching in an inappropriate way with “sexual or lewd intent,” he will prosecute.  There have been other local and state efforts that have gotten nowhere.

TSA maintains that the procedures are necessary. A statement from TSA chief John Pistole said, “All pat-downs are done professionally and are designed to detect hidden explosives that could bring down a plane. Only a small percentage of passengers end up needing them. Pat-downs have long been one of the many security measures TSA and virtually every other nation has used in its risk-based approach to help detect hidden and dangerous items.”

The body scanners are also used on children.  Last year, a 12 year old girl was leaving Tampa with a friend and her friend’s parents.  The body scanner was used on her.  The girl was traumatized when she returned to her home in Baltimore.  In England, the body scanners are not allowed to be used on passengers under the age of 18 because it violates child pornography laws.  Many sexual assault victims also have a difficult time flying any more.  They must choose between allowing a person to see them naked or be pinched, groped, or prodded.  The extra security is not working either.  Just recently, a Jet Blue passenger was allowed to go through security with three box-cutters in his carryon luggage.  That is right, box cutters—the very weapon used during the 9/11 hijacking.

TSA is violating passengers for no apparent reason.  It doesn’t make us safer.  It may provide the illusion that we are safer but in the long run, we are not.

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A new study published in JAMA investigated the harmful effects of cell phones on the brain.  The conclusion is less than clear.  People have been debating the effects of cell phones since they were first introduced.  There have been scientists and citizens who feel cell phones pose a significant threat.  There are also those who believe we have other things to worry about.

Investigators from the National Institute of Health conducted a study on 47 healthy adults.  The researchers put cell phones to both ears and conducted PET scans of the brain (an imaging technique that measures metabolic activity in the form of glucose consumption) with both phones deactivated, and with the phone adjacent to the right ear activated, in random sequence. Activation of the right cell phone was in mute mode so that participants were blinded to the intervention.

The study found three key points which will do nothing to resolve the cell phone controversy, at least for now.  First, researchers found that whole brain metabolic activity was unaffected by cell phone activation. Second, brain metabolic activity directly adjacent to an activated cell phone was significantly increased. And third, the researchers have no idea what, if any, clinical significance this has.

It is interesting that brain metabolic activity increases with a cell phone but it is not known if that is bad or not.  It is well known that radio-frequency waves penetrate human bodies, and we now know they activate brain activity, but there is no clear evidence they harm us in the process.   The published data, based on many studies and observations in hundreds of thousands of people, remain open to interpretation. One study in the Netherlands examined the issue in over 400,000 people, and found no evidence of harm.  A meta-analysis in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, however, concluded there was possible evidence of increased risk of brain tumors from extended cell phone use demonstrated in studies least subject to bias. Of course cell phones have only been used by a large portion of the population for a decade or two, so certainly more long-term research is needed.

For now, I guess, the cell phone debate will continue with the microwave debate.  All those radioactive waves may turn us into the Hulk someday.  Or maybe not.

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