• Problems with Ultrasound/doppler by Edwards (immediately below)
• Excerpts about ultrasound from "What Doctors Don't Tell You"
• Excerpt from Anne Frye, midwife and author of "Understanding Lab Work in the Childbearing Year" (4th Ed.)
• Mercola reference to Journal of Epidemiology
• Link to Mothering magazine
• Link to "alternamums" site
• Men's health issues that may be relevant

PROBLEMS w/Ultrasound & Doppler

Shadow of a doubt

by Rob Edwards

ULTRASOUND SCANS can stop cells from dividing and make them commit suicide.

A research team in Ireland say this is the first evidence that routine scans,
which have let doctors peek at fetuses and internal organs for the past 40
years, affect the normal cell cycle.

A team led by Patrick Brennan of University College Dublin gave 12 mice an
8-megahertz scan lasting for 15 minutes. Hospital scans, which reflect
inaudible sound waves off soft tissue to produce images on a monitor, use
frequencies of between 3 and 10 megahertz and can last for up to an hour

The researchers detected two significant changes in the cells of the small
intestine in scanned mice compared to the mice that hadn't been scanned.
Four and a half hours after exposure, there was a 22 per cent reduction in the
rate of cell division, while the rate of programmed cell death or
"apoptosis" had approximately doubled.

Brennan believes there will be similar effects in humans. "It has been
assumed for a long time that ultrasound has no effect on cells," he says.
"We now have grounds to question that assumption."

Brennan stresses, however, that the implications for human health are
uncertain. "There are changes happening, but we couldn't say whether they
are harmful or harmless," he explains. The intestine is a very adaptable organ
that can compensate for alterations in the cell cycle, says Brennan.

It is possible that the sound waves damage the DNA in cells, delaying cell
division and repair. Brennan suggests that ultrasound might be switching on
the p53 gene which controls cell deaths. This gene, dubbed "the guardian of
the genome", produces a protein that helps cells recognise DNA damage and
then either self-destruct or stop dividing.

Studies in the early 1990s by researchers at the University of Rochester in
New York and the Batelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Richland,
Washington, showed that tissue heating due to ultrasound can cause bleeding
in mouse intestines. Ultrasonographers now tune the power of scans to reduce
such heating.

But Brennan's work is the first evidence that scans create changes in cells.
"Our results are preliminary and need further investigation," he says. The
team presented their results at the Radiology 1999 conference in Birmingham
last month and are now preparing them for submission to a peer-reviewed
journal.

Alex Elliott, a researcher in clinical physics at the University of Glasgow,
thinks that Brennan's results are important and should be followed with
further studies. "If the conditions of his experiments really compare to the
clinical use of ultrasound," he says, "we may have to review the current
safety limits."

From New Scientist, 12 June 1999

Here are some excerpts about ultrasound from "What Doctors Don't Tell You"
by Lynne McTaggart.    "No well controlled study has yet proved that
routine scanning of prenatal patients will improve the outcome of
pregnancy" - official statement from American College of Obstetrics &
Gynecology in 1984 

Some studies show that, with ultrasound, you are more likely to lose your
baby.  A study from Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in London found
that women having doppler ultrasound were more likely to lose their babies
than those who received only standard neonatal care (17 deaths to 7). 

A Norwegian study of 2,000 babies found that those subjected to routine
ultrasound scanning were 30% more likely to be left-handed than those sho
weren't scanned.  An Australian study demonstraates that frequent scans
increased the proportion of growth-restricted babies by a third, resulting
in a higher number of small babies.  Exposure to ultrasound also caused
delayed speech, according to Canadian researcher Professor James Campbell. 

The International Childbirth Education Association has maintained that
ultrasound is most likely to affect development (behavioral &
neurological), blood cells, the immune system, & a child's genetic makeup. 

Besides the safety issue, there are considerable questions about accuracy.
There is a significant chance that your scan will indicate a problem when
there isn't one, or fail to pick up aa problem actually there.  One study
found a "high rate" of false positives, 17% of the pregnant women scanned
were shown to have small-for-dates babies, when only 6% actually did - an
error rate of nearly one out of three.  Another study from Harvard showed
that among 3,100 scans, 18 babies were erroneously labeled abnormal, and 17
fetuses with problems were missed. 

Not well publicized for obvious reasons, doppler devices expose the fetus 
to more powerful ultrasound than real time (imaging) ultrasound exams. 
One minute of doppler exposure is equal to 35 minutes of real time 
ultrasound. This is an important point for women to consider when 
deciding between an ultrasound exam and listening with a doppler to 
determine viability in early pregnancy. . . . . 

If you have a doppler, put it aside and make a concerted effort to learn 
to listen yourself! Save your doppler for those rare occasions when you 
cannot hear the heart rate late into pushing or to further investigate 
suspected fetal death. " copyright l990, Anne Frye, B.H. Holistic 
Midwifery. 

Personally, after 23 years of attending births, I would not permit a 
doppler in my house if I were pregnant. You always know that something 
is ultrasound because there will be "jelly" involved. If you want a 
cheap listening device for the baby's heart just save the core from a 
roll of toilet paper. Put one end on the lower belly and the other on 
hubby's ear. If you want to know your baby is doing well, count the 
fetal movements in a day. Starting at 9 a.m. count each time the baby 
kicks. There should be l0 distinct movements by 3 p.m. 

I think it's sad that some people will do anything to make a buck of the 
huge pregnant market in North America. Please feel free to forward this 
post on to any other lists. 

Gloria Lemay, Vancouver BC 
Wise Woman Way of Birth Courses 
http://www.birthlove.com/pages/wise_woman.html>>> 
 

      http://www.mercola.com/2001/dec/19/ultrasound.htm

My boss, Dr. Mark Ellisman, is a world-renowned research scientist at UCSD
who specializes in imaging technologies for the study of brain structure 
at the cellular level; he has personally found evidence of something
called "cavitation", which is the "rapid formation and collapse of vapor
pockets" in fluid within tissue. When my wife and I became pregnant 
he warned me to keep the ultrasound as short as possible. He knows what
he's talking about. 

Here's a relevant quote:

   "Free radical production in amniotic fluid and blood plasma by medical
    ultrasound, probably following gaseous cavitation, has been detected 
    by Crum et al (1987). This provides a likely mechanism for the
    origin of the DNA damage. Because of these confirmations and a report 
    by Ellisman et al (1987) that diagnostic levels of ultrasound may disrupt
    myelination in neonatal rats, the need for regulation, guidance, and
    properly controlled clinical studies is clear."

          http://www.aimsusa.org/ultrasnd.htm

http://www.alternamoms.com/ultrasound.html

mirror of this work held locally on consumercide

So please don't consider this a benign procedure or an opportunity
to get some pretty pictures. and *please* don't get an extra
3D ultrasound, which is a very long scan, to get the 3D picture
of your baby. There is a real risk, and it's just not worth it.

Do a Google search on "+ultrasound +cavitation" or "+ultrasound +Ellisman"
and convince yourself.

Just my .02

Dave

I found this article quite interesting. 

I also saw this one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1751000/1751177.stm

This made me wonder what ultrasound does to developing babies if it 
can have such a drastic effect on a testicle.