According to newspaper reports, Taiwanese receive more than 3 million computed tomography (CT) scans every year.
As CT scans are covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI), people often avail themselves of the free, high-tech medical checks. This is both a benefit and a drawback of the NHI.
A CT scan radiation dose can be as high as 10 to 20 millisieverts, more than 100 times higher than that of an X-ray and equivalent to the dose 2km from the hypocenter of the atomic bomb blasts in Japan’s Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
In other words, on a daily basis at Taiwanese hospitals, people suffer radiation exposure equal to that of an atomic bomb, yet no one seems to care.
The chance of getting cancer from a single CT scan is low, and CT scans are necessary in many cases as part of medical treatment. The risk lies in the impact of accumulated radiation exposure on future generations.
Today, people commonly receive three, four or even more than a dozen CT scans over a lifetime. The younger the patients are, the greater the potential damage.
China Medical University in Taichung conducted a study based on NHI data, and the findings showed that children and teenagers who had received head CT scans were three times likelier to develop a brain tumor. This study has been cited several hundred times after its publication in a British cancer journal.
People are often given CT scans after a trauma, but is that necessary when they are conscious?
Some doctors even give patients with a small cold CT examinations to avoid potential medical lawsuits, as the NHI program covers such expenses anyway.
Taiwanese have refused to eat Japanese food products from some areas affected by the 2011 Fukushima incident, but if a person consumed radiation-affected food every day for a year, the dose is only about 1 millisievert at most, which is within the tolerance range. After eating such food for five years, the dose is not higher than that of a CT scan.
Taiwanese love CT scans, but hate radiation-affected food because of personal biases. In addition, they believe doctors give them CT scans because it is good for them.
At some hospitals one-third of the people given a CT scan have only minor ailments, but the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) is only concerned with resource waste and a financial crowding-out effect, overlooking the negative health effects and the recent increase in cancer cases.
Studies from other countries estimate that perhaps 2 percent of cancers are caused by CT scans. If this is true, then every year more than 1,000 Taiwanese might get cancer because of CT scans.
Not only do hospitals and doctors turn a blind eye to this risk, they also recommend that people receive tens of thousands of sieverts of radiation.
From a patient’s perspective, reducing the number of CT scans requires telling the public that CT scans are a double-edged sword, as the risk of radiation from them is more serious than that from a nuclear power station. Patients should let doctors know: “I’m a patient, I oppose nukes and unnecessary CT scans.”
From a hospital perspective, perhaps the NHIA’s method of paying for the scans on a case-by-case basis is the main problem. If it charged a “radiation tax,” it could reduce the crowding-out effect that CT scans have on other expenses.
Wen Chi-pang is an honorary research fellow at the National Health Research Institutes.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry