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Radiation doses experienced after a whole body CAT scan are similar to those experienced by people on the edges of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs were dropped, says an environmental radiation expert. If you're planning a trip to Mars, forget it. A leading radiation expert reckons that unless NASA comes up with effective shielding, it's likely the dose of radiation received on a manned mission to the Red Planet could well be lethal. Professor Eric Hall from Columbia University in New York has spent much of his career studying the impact of environmental radiation. The figures he uses extrapolate from what's known about the radiation exposure of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors and their risk of cancer over the past 50 years or so. There has been a small increase in the numbers of people developing cancer beyond what would otherwise have been expected. And it turns out that the lowest radiation doses experienced after the bombs in Japan are similar to those from a whole body CAT scan. And in the survivors, these exposures are associated a few additional cancers So given the controversy already over whole body CAT scanning, the thought that you might as well have stood on the edge of Hiroshima in early August 1945, should give pause for thought.
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