

Dozens of patients injured by stray radiation beam - edw519
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40839907/ns/health-the_new_york_times/

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noonespecial
I've seen these devices in action. There is zero visual feedback when they are
operating. Would it be so hard just to have a variable brightness indicator
light coupled with a radiation detector so the operator or assistant would say
"damn, is it always that bright?"

Something, anything that would give the operator some kind of visceral
feedback consistent with the output.

~~~
ars
It mentioned that there is a light field that is supposed to show where the
radiation will hit, but the mount blocked it - but didn't block the radiation.

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byteclub
"To work around that problem hospitals needed to, as one medical physicist put
it, essentially trick the machine into thinking it was using a different
attachment, which it did recognize. To do that, users had to enter additional
data into the SRS system."

Scary.

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nopassrecover
Very. Presumably they're paying for hefty support contracts as part of the
purchase of these machines - I cannot imagine that the developers recommended
medical end-users alter the system. If so they seem culpable.

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OstiaAntica
Meanwhile, untrained TSA employees are rolling out hundreds of new radiation
scanners at airports. The technology is different but TSA malfunctions are
simply a matter of time...

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dannyb
While I agree with the general thrust of your comment, the machines used by
the TSA are not "focused" in the same way. It would take much greater effort
to create hazardous conditions like these patients experienced.

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tgvcfgtbvcfgh
The TSA systems (at least the backscatter X-ray) do use a focussed moving beam
to build up an image. They rely on the continual movement of the beam to limit
the dose.

There are a number of safety systems to prevent the machine leaving the beam
on should the mechanism stick.

And of course they are operated by the finest trained experts with a
comprehensive background in nuclear physics and the ability to react in the
fraction of a second before a notifiable dose was delivered

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notaddicted
I'm guessing submitter discovered this in The Risks Digest. I subscribed by
RSS recently and I am finding it interesting. There is a healthy culture of
informed paranoia in plenty of other disciplines aside from software that one
can learn from.

<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks>

A hilarious article about f16 testing is what turned me on to it in the first
place: <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html#subj1>

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gnosis
Original article:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/health/29radiation.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/health/29radiation.html?_r=1)

~~~
ars
It's the same text BTW.

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vsync
> The mistakes in Evanston involve linear accelerators — commonly used for
> standard radiation therapy — that were redesigned by the manufacturer,
> Varian Medical Systems, so they could also perform SRS. As the devices
> became more versatile and complex, problems arose when vital electronic
> components could not communicate with one another.

WTF, this is eerily and specifically reminiscent of Therac-25. Did they learn
nothing?

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nitrogen
I hope that the families of the unfortunate victims of these overdoses allow
the affected tissues to be studied (with appropriate compensation), so that
treatments can be devised if similar injuries occur in the future, and general
medical knowledge increases.

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icegreentea
Echos of Therac-25. Not nearly as bad... no one's dead yet.

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tedunangst
This guy is dead.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/health/24radiation.html>

Actually, if you look at the author's work, he's been covering radiation
overdose all year.

[http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b...](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/walt_bogdanich/index.html?inline=nyt-
per)

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milhous
I'll trust UCSF over TSA's bullshit any day of the week.

[http://news.ucsf.edu/news-briefs/details/ucsf-scientists-
spe...](http://news.ucsf.edu/news-briefs/details/ucsf-scientists-speak-out-
against-airport-full-body-scans/)

