I wish to address this.
No, getting a single CT scan every year is NOT enough radiation, based on current evidence, to increase one’s chance of getting cancer in the future.
The thing is - none of us get radiation exposure from JUST medical imaging. In reality we are all exposed every minute of every day to some radiation. It’s part of existing in this universe. Cosmic rays shoot through us all the time. There’s radon seeping out of the ground. Higher elevations have higher background radiation. Granite - including trendy countertops - has measurable radiation. Bananas have measurable radiation. And so on. Our bodies do have some ability to manage the results of this, if our distant microbial ancestors had not evolved such abilities none of us multi-cellular animals would be here.
The notion that there is NO safe, minimal radiation exposure is not an established fact. Clearly, a huge amount all at once is not healthy for you. However, the evidence so far doesn’t show any increased cancer risk until a dose of 100 mSv or higher. The notion that lower doses cause increased risk is an extrapolation backward of the damage done by higher doses, including exposure to an actual nuclear blast which no one is arguing is good for you.
While it is possible to exceed 100 mSv with medical imaging that’s about 5-10 CT scans (typically 10-20 mSv each) in a very short time period. Again, possible, but not likely or common. PET scans are even more radiation intensive, around 30 mSv so three of those in a row might not be a good idea but I’ve never heard of someone having that many in a short interval.
The point is, while you shouldn’t get unnecessary imaging involving ionizing radiation performed neither should you be afraid of it. If someone needed a couple dental x-rays, an x-ray of an injured leg, then a CT scan for some other reason all in a year they’d still be well under that 100 mSv dose that marks the first point at which there is any actual evidence of increased cancer risk. That’s a 100 mSv all at once, and I was talking about imaging spread over the course of a year, during which exposures the body will be repairing any damage done, just as it repairs damage from exposure to sunlight or air pollution or whatever other things you’re exposed to in the environment.
You also have to consider age: radiation-induced cancers typically take around 20 years (more or less) to manifest. It’s largely a non-issue even for a healthy 80 year old (living to 100 is still rare) much less one having serious health issues (which might shorten their life expectancy to much less than another 20 years).
All of this figures into the risk vs. benefit calculation. Using imaging can help make a more rapid diagnosis and alert doctors to problems early, which is very often of benefit and can save a life.
Then there is the use of radiation for therapeutic purposes. Radiation treatment in cancer routinely uses amounts of radiation that, if administered all at once, would be rapidly lethal but they aren’t administered all at once, it’s done in fractional doses over time which (ideally) kills off the cancer but allows the patient to survive.
All of this comes down to it’s unlikely doctors would hesitate to use CT imaging on a 79 year old man if that could help diagnose a problem, or even just as a screening tool if said patient was at significant risk for something. A CT scan is “a lot” of radiation compared to, say, what’s in the average banana but it’s not a hazardous amount but any sane definition of that term.
I did some research into this during this past year as I have been subjected to considerable medical imaging connected to treating cancer. To date, since last March, I have had 3 CT scans (fairly extensive, two at 20 mSv and one at 15 mSv ), a PET scan (20 mSv) and two dental x-rays (a whopping 0.01 mSv). That’s a total of (based on my records and calculations) 85.01 mSv. I will have another CT scan in (checks calendar) December so that will boost it up to 100.01 mSv for 2025 for me which is just at the bottom of starting to affect my chances of future cancer. In twenty years. When I’ll be in my 80’s. Which, if I hadn’t had my treatment this year I would never have had a chance of reaching at all. Which is an illustration of the sort of trade-offs involved in medical decision making.
Anyhow - we don’t actually know what tests Trump actually had. I don’t consider him a reliable witness as I’m pretty sure he couldn’t visually distinguish a CT scanner from an MRI (they certainly sound different when in operation). It’s possible he even had both. After all, he doesn’t have to pay for any of this, and neither do his doctors.
I’m sure no doctor would hesitate if the person was at significant risk for something - but screening without a significant risk is something else. Ther are issues other than future cancer risk. I may have told this story before - my husband was supposed to have a hip replacement. His cardiologist wouldn’t give him clearance without a stress test, which she couldn’t/wouldn’t do until a month later ( and which she apparently didn’t see a need for when he had a regular followup visit a month or so earlier) , which was after the surgery was scheduled. Hospital found another cardiologist, who cleared him. Anesthesiologist wanted the stress test because of the conflicting cardiologists. Surgery gets cancelled morning of. Something shows up on the stress test so he gets sent for a coronary CT angiography which also has an abnormal result. So now he gets an angiogram which is an invasive procedure with some risk which showed no significant blockage and he finally has the surgery a week or so later .
Now, all of this was done based on abnormal results - but all of it, even the stress test, was also based on risk. If he hadn’t already been seeing a cardiologist (for high blood pressure) none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t have needed cardiac clearance or the stress test. Which might sound like it’s not a problem to have it done anyway - right up until you get to the angioplasty, which has risks of its own. Which is probably exactly the reason that people with no known cardiac problems don’t need cardiac clearance for surgery and why cardiologists don’t always require a stress test to give that clearance. Which is why I don’t buy that Trump’s tests were done for screening with no medical indication at all.
Given all of these considerations, I think trump should have a CT scan every single day just to make sure. Make sure of what, you ask? Just make sure. 
And maybe a four hour MRI, with and without contrast. Every day.
I say we just nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
The risks of an MRI without contrast are really minimal. Even the risks of a CT scan are very very small. (Especially without contrast.) I’ve gotten both to explain something that was bugging me that wasn’t “a significant risk”. I mean, unless you think, “sorry, the pain in your foot is caused by arthritis and we can’t do anything” a “risk”.
Maybe his bone spurs are acting up. Maybe he’s bought into the value of proactive scanning, "just in case’. You really don’t need a compelling reason to get imaged, especially if you are one of the most powerful people in the world.
I have a (really fun) brain disease, Wernicke-Korsakoff. I am an intelligent guy, but that test, the same one given to Trump… I also failed.
Obviously different reasons, because I am an intelligent man with a brain disease whereas Trump is a brain disease searching for intelligence… in all the wrong places.
And just before that, he should be awarded a bigly heavy gold painted
iron medallion for being the greatest most intelligent president ever.
As mentioned above, totally agree. He should also have daily colonoscopy. We can’t risk rhe future of the kingdom by treating the god emperor like some regular shmuck.
When you have that bacterium by the flagellum…
Well…
I saw Donald Trump walking ahead of the queen
Doing the werewolves of MAGA
I saw Donald Trump eating a Big Mac at the White House
And his MRI was perfect
Eh, who on this board is a billionaire and a hypochondriac?
My Dad took that test (or a very similar one). My Dad clearly has memory issues, and has a great deal of difficulty with any tasks that take planning and coordination, such as following a recipe. My Dad passed the test in the normal range for his age (same as Trump).
Sure, my Dad can draw hands on a clock perfectly, and name 10 animals in two minutes or whatever, but he can’t remember the name of the street he lives on, or that he’s asked me the same question 3 times in 10 minutes.
I’m sure the test is diagnostic of something, but clearly is not proof of sound cognitive health.
Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon. And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, "My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree.”
-Kahlil Gibran
Of course many Christians have, for centuries, hated Jesus. But there’s a far cry between hating everything he stood for, and publicly repudiating him. He’s kind of the whole brand, and people who repudiate Jesus stop identifying as Christian in much the same way as people who repudiate Trump stop identifying as Republican.
That is actually not the case. I found out in recent years that it’s become policy, at least around here, for anyone over 60 to get a cardiac clearance prior to major surgery REGARDLESS of whether or not they have any heart or cardiovascular problems. But I guess they view age alone as a risk factor now. And given that age alone is, in fact, a risk factor for a number of things a CT scan might well be ordered for Trump.
According to the NIH, there is a significant risk from CT scans:
From the article:
Using the UCSF registry data on individual CT exams and RadRAT, the team estimated that CT use in 2023 could result in almost 103,000 future cancers. If current practices continue, CT scan use might eventually account for about 5% of all new cancer diagnoses in the U.S. per year.
I’ll grant that the increased risk for someone of Trump’s age is very low, but in general, most doctors will avoid using CT scans unless they’re looking for something specific.
And he should get an MRI while wearing the medallion.
I’m not saying this guy is someone you should accept without question, but he explains why the risks of low level radiation likely aren’t as great as we’ve been told for a few decades. In particular, if you don’t want to watch the entire video, his analogy with a commonly consumed substance starting at 24:30 is, in my opinion, particularly useful.
This is not to say radiation is completely harmless. It isn’t. Neither are a lot of other things in life, including many things other than radiation used in medicine. The poison is in the dose, as was observed a very long time ago.
I mean, we shouldn’t subject people to surgery unless it’s necessary. We shouldn’t prescribed antibiotics unless it’s necessary. And so on - a LOT of what is done in medicine comes with inherent risks but we don’t talk about how antibiotic use in 2003 will result in X number of future deaths from drug-resistant bacteria using a number that appears quite authoritative but maybe isn’t.
Some tragic errors that resulted in suffering and death were what lead to today’s very strict guidelines, but maybe they are more strict than actually necessary. I’d like to see some more actual research and science done on this topic.
Yes, a lot of doctors seem hesitant about CT scans… unless they work in the ER or oncology, apparently.