From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

The use and abuse of radiation.

Hello again, I'm Orman Alney, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

Japan's nuclear disaster

has reawakened fear of radiation, the invisible enemy that's also used to discover diseases

and save human lives. Even radiologists say Americans are getting too much of a good thing, but not

from fallout, airport scanners, or cell phones. Doctors are ordering seven times more radiation scans than they

were 30 years ago, while diagnoses of life-threatening conditions have hardly risen at all.

Are so many scans really needed for medicine?

Or to avoid lawsuits, pay back investments in expensive machines, and satisfy the demands

of patients?

On reporter's notebook later on, good news and bad news in the unemployment rate.

First here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica

and from the Public Radio International Program Fund,

whose contributors include the Ford Foundation,

the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,

and the Skoll Foundation,

supporting social entrepreneurs around the world, uncommon heroes dedicated to the common good.

Learn more at scowl.org. Hello again, Warren Alney, back with To the Point. A mammogram produces

4,000 times more radiation than an airport security scan. An abdominal CT scan produces 200,000 times more.

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