the most unsuspected problem caused by radiofrequency fields of MRI is localized heating, a risk that is magnified among babies or patients who are anaesthesized.108 For instance, in one poll of 10 US American departments of radiology, the overwhelming majority of serious injuries relating to MRI imaging were burns.109 This heating can also cause future fertility problems in men, since sperm are rendered sterile if heated up to body temperature. One study found that average scrotal skin temperature was significantly raised by an average of 2°C, with the highest change 4°C.110 Four separate studies support Jill’s contention that the technique causes memory loss.111
The National Radiological Protection Board concludes that a magnetic field of 2.5 tesla (T) is safe for all patients. Between 2.5 and 4 T, evidence of harm is doubtful, but from 4 T upwards, likely to occur.
If you are pregnant, have a pacemaker or have a metal prosthesis such as an artificial hip, retained shrapnel or cochlear, carbon-fibre implants, you should avoid MRI. Implants in particular can either move or become foci for the heating effect of MRI, causing discomfort and local tissue damage. Besides the dangers of metal inside your body, every metallic object in the scanning room becomes a potentially lethal missile once the MRI device is turned on. The most serious reported injury with MRI occurred when an oxygen tank near the magnet started flying and struck a patient’s face.112
Doctors are also increasingly worried about the contrast agents used for all the ‘nuclear’ imaging techniques.
Of all the reports made to the UK Adverse Reaction Reporting Scheme in the six years between 1977–83, nearly half concerned methylene diphosphonate for bone imaging and one-third concerned colloids for liver scans. The majority of complaints concerned hypersensitivity to the dyes. The most conservative estimate is one in 1,000 people react – a figure far higher than originally believed.113
If your doctor wants you to undergo the procedure you should make sure he first takes your full medical history, since the protocol for using MRI differs depending on what you are investigating. According to multiple sclerosis specialist Dr Patrick Kingsley, when diagnostic toys like MRI weren’t available, any reasonably experienced neurologist could make a confident diagnosis of MS based on a patient’s symptoms and history. The only reason perhaps to proceed with an MRI scan is if the neurologist wishes to rule out a brain tumour which might be amenable to surgery.
LAB TESTS
Besides x-rays, laboratory tests of all persuasions are subject to the grossest sort of error. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, studied a representative sampling of laboratories all over the US and found that about a quarter of all tests had incorrect results.114
An editorial in The Lancet once concluded that many routine laboratory diagnostic tests are a waste of time and money.115 This includes blood counts and biochemical screening when you’re admitted to hospital. One study, it said, showed that the illnesses of only six out of 630 patients were diagnosed from routine blood and urine tests. In another study of over 1,000 patients in an adult psychiatric unit, routine blood and urine tests contributed to less than 1 per cent of diagnoses; nearly three-quarters of diagnoses were made on the basis of the patient’s medical history or a physical examination.116
Doctors can’t even agree on blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.
A Scottish study found marked differences in the results between the two tests – one which measures carbohydrates in the blood, the other, just glucose – used to assess control of blood sugar levels and whether good blood sugar control has been achieved.117
THE HIV TEST
The most shameful instance of an unreliable lab test used for diagnostic purposes is the AIDS test. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test is most frequently used to test your HIV status, and is usually considered proof-positive that you are infected with HIV. A test called Western Blot is often used as a confirmation. For the ELISA test, a sample of the patient’s blood is added to a mixture of proteins. It is assumed that if HIV antibodies are present in the blood, they will react to the HIV proteins in the test.
The proof that HIV causes AIDS hinges entirely on the idea that detection of an antibody response to the virus is proof of its actual presence. Doctors assume that if your body has made antibodies specific to HIV, it must mean that a protein of the virus – and so the virus itself – is present. In other words, the so-called AIDS tests cannot test for the presence of HIV, just the presence of antibodies to it – the usual sign that the body has fought off infection and won.
With the Western Blot, these HIV proteins are isolated in bands; when mixed with a blood sample, each protein band will show up if it has bound to an antibody.
Besides being unable actually to detect HIV, these tests are notoriously unreliable; in Russia, in 1990, out of 20,000 positive ELISA tests, only 112 could be confirmed using the Western Blot, according to Australian biophysicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, who has studied both tests in depth.118 The French government considers these tests so unreliable that it withdrew nine of the 30 HIV tests that were once available.
The other problem is that neither test is specific to HIV; both react to many other proteins caused by other diseases. For example, the protein p24, generally accepted to be proof of the existence of HIV, is found in all retroviruses that live in the body and do no harm. This means that p24 is not unique to HIV, as Dr Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of the HIV virus, has stated repeatedly. Hepatitis B and C, malaria, papillomavirus warts, glandular fever, tuberculosis, syphilis and leprosy are just a few of the conditions that are capable of producing biological false-positives in ELISA tests.119
In one study, antibodies to p24 were detected in 13 per cent of patients with generalized papilloma virus warts, 24 per cent of patients with skin cancer and 41 per cent of patients with multiple sclerosis.120 In one study, half the patients with a positive p24 test later tested negatively.121
Western Blot, supposed to be the more accurate of the two, has proven no better than ELISA. Dr Max Essex of Harvard University’s School of Public Health, a highly respected AIDS expert, found that the Western Blot gave a positive result to some 85 per cent of African patients later found to be HIV-negative. Eventually, he and his researchers discovered that proteins from the leprosy germ – which infects millions of Africans – can show up as a false-positive on both ELISA and Western Blot, as can malaria.122 In one study of Venezuelan malaria patients, the rate of false-positives with Western Blot was 25–41 per cent.123
This poor track record is disturbing when you consider that the main AIDS ‘risk’ groups – gay men, drug-users and haemophiliacs – are exposed to many foreign substances such as semen, drugs, blood transfusions and blood components, hepatitis, Epstein Barr virus
