brianct
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# Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:46
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AIRPORT SCANNER SCANDAL Government officials insist that because the new airport scanners emit only a very low dose of radiation, they are safe. But unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies. The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high. In a letter to Dr. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, four scientists from the University of California, San Francisco expressed concerns about the backscatter X-ray airport security scanners, noting the lack of safety data and the probable increased risk to the elderly, children and adolescents, pregnant women, and those at risk for breast and skin cancer. Potential targets for damage include the cornea, the thymus and the sperm. They noted that while the X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest Xrays have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight and volume, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high. The scientists also expressed concern that TSA personnel, already complaining about resolution limitations, might be tempted to raise the dose (www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern. pdf). All passengers have the option to refuse the backscatter X-ray scan, but the alternative is a body pat down which some find embarrassing or invasive. Many citizens are just refusing to fly until the scanning policies are changed. Be sure to complain to your representative and senators. http://www.westonaprice.org/caustic-commentary/caustic-commentary-winter-2010
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