Just a week after the FDA issued a report warning against the overdose of radiation, hospitals left and right have been revisiting their use of  radiation machines after Cedars-Sinai hospital admitted to 206 overdose cases.

"The hospital’s radiology manager at the time, Bruce Fleck, called the overdose a “rogue act of insanity.” Robert Schlag, chief of the state’s division of Food, Drug and Radiation Safety, said it was “one of the more egregious, extreme cases that I have ever seen.”

The Arcata case is considered particularly disturbing because children are more vulnerable to the long-term effects of radiation, including cancer.

For reasons not yet fully understood, the X-ray technologist, Raven Knickerbocker, activated the CT scan 151 times on the same area, state investigators concluded. A normal test involves some 25 images, Mr. Schlag said. The test was terminated only after the victim’s father, who had been holding his son still, began to worry that it was taking too long."

Cedars-Sinai is now facing major lawsuit possibilies, all because of its refusal to check its dosage charts and treatment plans. This is a lesson for doctors and hospitals to stay in a state of awareness all the time.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/us/16radiation.html?sq=October 16 2009&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&scp=4&adxnnlx=1255957210-J78dzKcFohq5+Uk5U/06vg