On its front page, the New York Times (11/23, A1, Bogdanich, McGinty) reports that three years ago, doctors “mounted a national campaign to protect” children and adolescents from harmful doses of radiation. Since then, “many clinics and hospitals” have reduced “diagnostic radiation to only those levels seen as absolutely necessary,” but “most dentists continue to use outmoded X-ray film requiring higher amounts of radiation,” while “orthodontists and other specialists” have embraced a “new scanning device that emits significantly more radiation than conventional methods, an examination by the New York Times has found.” The cone-beam CT scanner’s “popularity has been fueled in part by misinformation about its safety and efficacy, some of it coming from dentists paid or sponsored by manufacturers to give speeches, seminars, and continuing education classes, as well as by industry-sponsored magazines and conferences.”
