Dear WW,
This morning I was motivated to check out the safety of full-body x-ray scanners that are currently in use at airports. As a result of this research, I recommend that you politely refuse the scanner and ask for a pat-down check instead.
The TSA personnel will tell you that the scanners are safe. They may even give you some statistics. I can tell you that the x-ray scanners are NOT safe, and that the statistics they are using are not correct, because they are comparing different types of x-rays in their stats.
These are my reasons for recommending that you avoid the scanners:
1. The x-ray scanners use an x-ray energy that will dump all the x-rays in your skin and in a small depth beneath your skin. The skin-dump is exactly the reason they give the pictures. This is extremely dangerous for (a) people who are already at higher risk for skin cancer (melanoma), (b) children, (c) pregnant women, and (d) men's gonads.
2. A group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) raised concerns about the “potential serious health risks” from the scanners in a letter sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April. This is what the scientists said:
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Biochemist John Sedat and his colleagues said in the letter that most of the energy from the scanners is delivered to the skin and underlying tissue.
“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,” they wrote.
The scientists say the X-rays could pose a risk to everyone from travelers over the age of 65 to pregnant women and their unborn babies, to HIV-positive travelers, cancer patients and men.
“Men’s sexual organs are exposed to the X-rays. The skin is very thin there,” Love explained
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The White House poo-pooed their concerns, giving statistics that were not relevant, because they were comparing apples to oranges, i.e. comparing x-rays that pass through the body to these "skin-dump" x-rays. The scientists are now at work on a rebuttal.
3. Cancer scientists are warning that these body scanners will statistically lead to some people getting skin cancer.
4. Pilots unions are telling their members to avoid the scanners, for the reasons given above.
5. The International Agency on Radiation Safety, composed of 14 agencies throughout the world, including the IAEA, says that these scanners should not be used on pregnant women and children. (They also should have included men!).
All the information above applies to the x-ray type of body scanner, which comprises about 2/3 of the scanners now in use at airports. Another type of scanner uses microwave radiation. The safety of this radiation is not known.
Please tell your sons and daughters. Protect their "junk"!
Topic: Protect your junk (Read 4632 times)
