Update, February 2006
This isn't just a UK problem
In January, The Federation of European Academies of Medical Science met with the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Affairs (SANCO) to request MRI’s exclusion. SANCO was surprised to discover that the Directive (drawn up by the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities [EMPL]) had been passed without any impact assessment of its health implications and is meeting Commissioner Spidla to discuss this.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic have all made representations to Commissioner Spidla (of EMPL), opposing the Directive’s impact on MRI, and our objections to the Directive have been repeated by the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology and by the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
Commissioner Spidla has agreed to meet experts from member states on 9th March to try to find a resolution to the problem.
Static field limit by the back door
There are two types of magnetic field used in MRI: static field and magnetic gradient field. An early draft of the Directive included static field but it was dropped: all 3T scanners (now the industry standard) would be illegal.
However, recent research1, 2 has demonstrated that movement through a static field creates a gradient. This will introduce a static field limit by the back door and would make it impossible to work near a high field magnet (3T+) even when it is switched off!
1 Crozier and Liu 2005 Progress in Bioph and Mol Biol, 87: 267
2 Liu, Zhao and Crozier 2003 JMR 161: 99
1 Crozier and Liu 2005 Progress in Bioph and Mol Biol, 87: 267 2 Liu, Zhao and Crozier 2003 JMR 161: 99
Last updated: November 23 2006