That era is over. However, medicine today, in some but not all quarters, is engaged in suggesting that LOW doses of radiation do not produce cancer. This fallacy, if not abandoned, will lead to a century of abusing and insulting the great contribution of Dr. Roentgen to medical science. If one claims a toxic agent is safe at some level, when that is untrue, the person making the claim is inflicting disease upon other persons, as a result of false information. This is a very serious matter.
Nothing can undo the massive harm caused by past misunderstanding.
But that is surely no reason to compound the errors of the past. We do NOT need more cases of breast cancer. There is absolutely no doubt that reducing unnecessary x-radiation will prevent vast numbers of future breast cancers. We hope that all physicians will join with health scientists in a determination to reduce unnecessary x-radiation. As discussed in this book, this effort can succeed without ever interfering with a single essential x-ray examination.