EU Directive Could Halt The Use of MRI Scanning - Cancer Patients to Suffer

by ScienceDave | September 24, 2007 at 07:45 am

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Our job is to help make Europe's citizens healthier, safer and more confident.

Over the years the European Union has established EU laws on the safety of food and other products, on consumers' rights and on the protection of people's health.

So reads the EU's Health and Consumer Directive-General website. However, according to the Europ. Cancer Organization (ECCO), such directives have been lacking so far:

The Directive on Good Clinical Practice, otherwise known as the clinical trials directive, is an example which is well known to the medical and scientific community. This was intended to harmonise regulations on clinical trials between member states, and thus create a level playing field and protect patients. In fact, it has had exactly the opposite effect and the number of academic clinical trials now carried out in Europe has dropped by about 30%.

...The Physical Agents (Electromagnetic Fields) Directive 2004/40/EC appears to be an eminently sensible attempt by DG Employment and Social Affairs to protect workers from exposure to radiation. But 3 years down the line, and only just before the April 2008 deadline for Member States to implement the directive into their own legislation, major concerns are being expressed about its impact on MRI scanning.

Implementation of the directive in its current form would effectively ban the use of MRI for diagnosis and treatment, as well as for research, in all Member States, where currently 8 million patient examinations are carried out per year. It sets limits to occupational radiation exposure which will mean that anyone working or moving near MRI equipment will breach them, thus making it possible for them to sue their employers. Even those maintaining or servicing the equipment may be affected.

The impact assessment which was made at the time the legislation was under discussion did not take into account the social and economic consequences of legislating in this area, says the Alliance for MRI*, a coalition of European Parliamentarians, patient groups, scientists and the medical community who are working to try to delay implementation of the legislation. Says British MEP John Bowis: “I am extremely concerned that an unintended consequence of the directive, as currently written, would be to make it impossible for health workers to operate MRI scanning machines. That is a nonsense, and must be corrected by the Commission.”

Ok, what is involved in MRI scaning to make it dangerous for MRI
technicians? Radiowaves, and lots of them. But is this really
enough? According to the World Health Organization:

[q
url="http://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/WhatisEMF/en/index1.html"]In the
area of biological effects and medical applications of non-ionizing
radiation approximately 25,000 articles have been published over the
past 30 years. Despite the feeling of some people that more research
needs to be done, scientific knowledge in this area is now more
extensive than for most chemicals.Based on a recent in-depth review of
the scientific literature, the WHO concluded that current evidence does
not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to
low level electromagnetic fields. However, some gaps in knowledge about
biological effects exist and need further research. [/q]

So what's happening? Here's a dialogue (albeit, not very funny):

EU Commission: We want to protect all the EU workers from unsafe working environments!
Workers: Alright, yea *high fives EU Comission*
EU Commission: No one can be exposed to X amount of radiation per year while working
Workers: Alright, yea *high fives EU Comission*
ECCO: But, MRI technicians are exposed to more than X amount? How can we legally get scanned?
EU Comission: *yawns, looks around*
Prof. Michael Bauman: "The added value that MRI represents to medical diagnostics has been tremendous; also MRI has to a certain extent contributed to a limited increase in the use of ionising radiation in medical imaging (e.g. CT). The latter development is important with respect to radiation-related cancer mortality risks and is as such in line with requirements laid down in EURATOM Directive 97/43 regarding optimisation and justification of medical exposure to ionising radiation.” [source]
Prof.'s Dag Rune Olsen and Michael Baurmann: " “To our knowledge there is no scientific evidence of long-term adverse health effects of exposure to static or fluctuating magnetic fields that are commonly found during MR scanning. Hasty decisions without scientific support will in this case have a severe impact on medical diagnostics and must thus be avoided.” [source]
Me: Who could possibly have let this slide by?