Scan limits ‘will harm patients’

UK medical experts have written to the Secretary of State for Health urging the government to intervene in a new EU law which will tighten the emission limits medical staff can be exposed to from magnetic resonance imaging scanners. By 2008, the Physical Agents Directive will put limits on exposure of operating staff to electromagnetic fields from zero to 300GHz but doctors argue the limit is 100 times lower than that deemed safe for patients having the MRI scans.