The Daily Dermatologist
Periodic commentary from Denver, CO skin cancer surgeon Hunter Sams, on matters relating to advocacy and action in the field of dermatology.
2007-04-03 13:57
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raya
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Advocacy
I remember when I was 5, my mother took me to buy Buster Brown shoes. She said “years before, they used a machine to measure shoe fit with X-rays, but stores don’t have them anymore.” Perhaps some people here today remember fluoroscopes. They emitted X-ray radiation to see foot bones through a shoe. Fluoroscopes were used from 1922 until 1960. However, during those years, radiation was increasingly viewed as something to be avoided.
In 1946, the year after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American Standards Association established fluoroscope “safe standard or tolerance dose,” per exposure. Children were not to receive more than 12 such exposures per year.
By the early 1950s, the American College of Surgeons, New York Academy of Medicine and the American College of Radiology issued warnings about the devices. In 1957, Pennsylvania became the first state to ban the use of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes. By 1960, they were no longer permitted in the U.S.
Now, nearly 50 years later, states are considering limiting another radiation emitting device.
I remember when I was 5, my mother took me to buy Buster Brown shoes. She said “years before, they used a machine to measure shoe fit with X-rays, but stores don’t have them anymore.” Perhaps some people here today remember fluoroscopes. They emitted X-ray radiation to see foot bones through a shoe. Fluoroscopes were used from 1922 until 1960. However, during those years, radiation was increasingly viewed as something to be avoided.
In 1946, the year after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American Standards Association established fluoroscope “safe standard or tolerance dose,” per exposure. Children were not to receive more than 12 such exposures per year.
By the early 1950s, the American College of Surgeons, New York Academy of Medicine and the American College of Radiology issued warnings about the devices. In 1957, Pennsylvania became the first state to ban the use of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes. By 1960, they were no longer permitted in the U.S.
Now, nearly 50 years later, states are considering limiting another radiation emitting device.