Doubtless you’ve heard the news by now that computed tomography scans cause cancer. Like other news published in medical journals, then reported by the news media and subsequently going viral on social media, the information is often stripped of all nuances and even some of the truth by the time it reaches our ears. It’s like a 21st-century version of the telephone game, on steroids.

The article that ignited this firestorm was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on April 14, 2025.