Consumer Federation of California

The Consumer Federation of California (CFC) supports SB 1237, which would require health facilities that use ionizing radiation to record the dose of radiation use during the administration of the radiation on the radiology film.  

SB 1237 will increase patient safety by deterring one-time overradiation errors, which can cause damage to DNA and increases a person’s lifetime risk for cancer, especially for children and youth.  At the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles over 260 people were exposed to overradiation within 18 months. 

The risk for overradiation is becoming more and more likely, as the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements reports that U.S. citizens are being exposed to ionizing radiation twice as much as in the past two decades. 

One-time instances of overradiation may be difficult to detect without proper documentation of the dosage administered, and for this reason and others, it is critical that SB 1237 becomes law.