Wellwellwellwellwell! WELL!

I just read a bit of welcome (or, wellcome!) news in Italian. If you understand Italian, here’s the link: goo.gl/JYN8ec. In a nutshell, beginning today, yes, TODAY!, two contrast agents used in MRIs have been banned in ITALY. And, quelle surprise (not), they are gadolinium-based.

Remember the study that came out some years ago about how much myeloma cells simply LOVED gadolinium, and proliferated at mad rates when placed in it? If not, just do a search of my blog for “gadolinium.” Gadolinium can also have a bunch of not-very-nice side effects…

The reason for this ban isn’t, however, because of that important gadolinium-myeloma study. No, what’s happening today in Italy is mostly a precautionary measure, based on the July 2017 recommendations of the EMA, the European Medicines Agency, which in turn are based (!) on the findings of its Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee, which is Europe’s equivalent to the U.S. FDA. Basically, small quantities of gadolinium have been shown to accumulate in the brain, and there is no way of proving that those quantities do not cause any damage in the long term.

Hence the ban.

Does that mean that gadolinium has been completely banned? Unfortunately not.

In some cases–when there is no other way to reach a diagnosis, e.g.–the smallest dose possible will be used. But there will be no more widespread use of this crap. Oh sorry, did I say “crap”? Oh dear, so I did. 😉

Another thing: the gadolinium-based contrast agents gadoxetic acid and gadobenic acid will continue to be used in liver scans.

But that is IT. Gadolinium is on its way out (at least, that’s what I hope!).

We need to focus on finding non-toxic or at least not-so-toxic contrast agents. There must be another way to do this…there must be…

Ah, speaking of which, I just read about potentially safer manganese-based contrast agents in an article titled “U.S. patients left fending for themselves with gadolinium safety risks”: goo.gl/zCz5gM

And this is where I am going to stop today, with the hope that a non-toxic contrast agent can be found…

P.S. I’ve been having difficulty accessing the Internet in the past few days…It’s on, then off, then on again…a real drag. I want to publish this post before I lose Internet again, so I’m not going to reread it, as I usually do…pazienza!

Off I go…Need to feed the cats and have lunch! Ciao! 🙂