Radiation Injury & Mercury Deposits in Internal Organs as a Result of Thallium-201 Chloride Intravenous Injection for SPECT Imaging; Additional Biochemical Information Obtained in the Images of Organs From SPECT or PET Scans; & Potential Injury Due to Radiation Exposure During Long Distance Flights

In order to study functional as well as anatomical aspects of various internal organs, SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computerized Tomography) has been used extensively for evaluation of these organs. For SPECT study, intravenous injection of radioactive substances such as technetium-99m (20 millicuries) & thallium-201 chloride (3 millicuries) is commonly used. Although the physical half-life of thallium-201 chloride is 73 hours its biological half-life is often more than 3.5 times that. Following intravenous injection of thallium-201 chloride it is concentrated in the heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, thyroid gland, testes or ovaries, and then eventually decays to mercury. Because of its relatively long physical & biological half-lives, thallium-201 chloride may produce mild radiation injury while it remains radioactive. Similar injuries may be induced by technetium-99m (often used for brain SPECT), which radiates Gamma rays (140 KeV), but since its physical half-life is only 6 hours, the side effects are not as significant as those of thallium-201 chloride. Since the main component of thallium-201 chloride radiation is X-ray (68-82 KeV), which consists of photons with a very short wavelength and a high penetrating power, prolonged exposure can induce electromagnetic field-induced injury. As a previous study of the principal author on electromagnetic field exposure indicated, electromagnetic field-induced injury causes the change of L-amino acids to D-amino acids. 2 days after SPECT study of the heart with intravenous injection of thallium-201 chloride, the principal author experienced shortness of breath, loss of appetite, dizziness, fever, and general malaise within the week, and found a progressively significant increase in D-glutamic acid and decrease in L-glutamic acid peaking 2 weeks after the initial injection but lasting for many weeks after in organs such as the heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, thyroid gland & testes, where radioactive substances had accumulated and radiation was at an average of about 400 counts/min. Even 2 months after the initial injection, the abnormal ratio of D-amino acids and L-amino acids had not returned to normal (in the radiation exposed heart, L-amino acids: 6 mg/dl with D-amino acids: 5 mg/dl; normal tissue, L-amino acids: 10 mg/dl with D-amino acids <1 mg/dl). The principal author tried to find a safe method of reducing possible radiation injury and accelerating the elimination of the already deposited mercury. He found that Japanese miso soup, which contains many easily absorbable forms of amino acids including cysteine, seemed to reduce the radiation sickness-like symptoms significantly, but did not reduce the locally accumulated radioactive thallium-201 chloride significantly. However, cilantro (Chinese parsley), which was taken purely fortuitously in Vietnamese soup, was found to accelerate urinary excretion of the already deposited mercury, as well as lead and aluminum. Subsequently, we found that parsley also induced similar effects. Also by coincidence, the principal author had to take a transatlantic flight at the time his body still contained residual traces of mercury. As is his habit while traveling, he measured the ambient radiation inside the aircraft and found it to be extremely high (300-450 count/minute) at 11-13 km altitude during the week of May 30-June 5, 1995 compared with previous levels (an average of about 150 count/minute after the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet hit Jupiter on July 16, 1994) and about 75 count/minute before the collision. Another unusual finding during this trip was that the principal author experienced fatigue, but severe insomnia both during the flight and afterwards, a condition which he has rarely experienced previously. These symptoms may be related to the unusually high deposits of heavy metals in the brain, thyroid gland, heart, liver, kidneys, testes, etc. and serving as multiple microantennae absorbing electromagnetic wave radiation which was responsible for the high counts detected by the Geiger counter. A valuable incidental finding during the study of the cardiac SPECT was that invisible molecular information existing on the imaged organs, on SPECT, PET, and MRI scans, such as glucose level, the presence of neurotransmitters, hormones, or microorganisms can be obtained from the images, where it was carried by X-ray or y-ray photons, using the Bi-Digital O-Ring Test resonance phenomenon between two identical substances.