Dissenting Voice

There can be such a thing as too much X-raying, thinks British X-ray Specialist James F. Brailsford (TIME, Dec. 20). Mass X-ray examinations, growing more popular in the U.S., do more harm than good, he recently told a group of Hollywood doctors. Said Dr. Brailsford, one of the founders of the British Radiological Society:

"If you feel fit and well, stay away from all doctors. Even in the case of cancer, nature will notify educated persons when to seek medical advice . . . Cheap mass examinations of those who have no symptoms are foolish. If a chest examination of someone who feels well shows a suggestion of something wrong, there is always a temptation to do something about it. Over 20% of the population has had some attack of tuberculosis and recovered without knowing it. If they had been X-rayed at a particular time, some small sign would have shown up and all their social contacts might have been disturbed . . . Moreover, mass examinations give a false sense of security . . . mass examinations cannot be accurate."

The thing to do, said Brailsford, is to teach people hygiene, train them to stay away from doctors unless symptoms develop.

Last week U.S. doctors talked back to Dr. Brailsford in sharp tones. His statements, snorted Dr. Russell Morgan, director of Johns Hopkins' department of radiology, were "totally contrary to the best medical thinking in this country at the present time." In the past six months, he said, X rays of the stomachs of 3,000 patients in Johns Hopkins' dispensary clinic turned up cancers in four people who had no symptoms whatever. Said Dr. Charles S. Cameron, medical and scientific director of the American Cancer Society: if a patient waits for symptoms of cancer, "all too often" it is too late for an operation. Dr. Cameron would like to see still more mass examinations; chest X rays for everyone over 45, taken once or twice a year, he said, would cut the death rate from cancer of the lung by "a considerable figure."

Most U.S. doctors agreed that it is far better to catch a case of tuberculosis or cancer early, when it is still curable, even if it means going to a doctor while you are feeling fine.

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