WARNING TO PARENTS W agree with the Greensboro Daily News that parents everywhere ought to heed the warning of the Charlotte health : officer (and other medical authorities) ; against the use of X-ray shoe fitting ma-pghines. BpDr. M. B.. Bethel made a month-long survey and found at least ten such manatees in Charotte alone. "Dangerous" is the word he uses to describe them. Spin an age of man-made radioactivity, when nuclear tests are poisoning the atmosphere to an unknown degree and subjecting mankind to an unprecedented amount of radiation, Dr. Bethel cautions us to expose ourselves to X-ray, a form of radiation, only when necessary 6n medi- advice. Bliust how many X-ray shoe-fitting machines there are in Rocky Mount we do not now know. We intend to find out. We do know for a fact that more than one shoestore here unwittingly features these devices as the "latest thing." Last summer Dr. H. Bently Glass, Johns Hopkins University geneticist in a hearing before a House Governmental Operations Subcommittee termed X-ray fitting of children's shoes as "unnecessary." Dr. Warren Weaver, an eminent radiation scientist, went further and termed X-ray shoe fittings as not only needless but "genetically stupid." Scientists have determined that X-ray shoe-fitting machines usually are not well shielded. This Causes X-rays to leak from them through the feet and up into the body. Since children are short, their reproductive organs are thus exposed to dangerous radiation and perhaps permanent injury. Scientific studies have definitely established that an overdose of radiation produces genetic mutations which are mostly undesirable and sometimes disastrous for future generations, resulting in sterility, deformity and shortened life spans. Parents are thus warned against these . T ,. ... tneirflse. In the meantime, proprietors of stores which have these machines should vanltVa ,1.,.. f 4-U. .uu ,-, a j. realize the danger tO the DUD lie and tn, store personnel.
