Posted on 11/18/2010 7:32:43 PM PST by smokingfrog
Full-body airport scanners are just as likely to kill you as a terrorist's bomb blowing your plane out of the sky, a leading scientist has said.
The controversial machines have been brought in at major airports across the globe, including the UK, leading to fears that the increased exposure to harmful radiation may cause cancer.
Now a US physics professor has added to the debate by claiming that the scanners are redundant because you are just as likely to contract cancer from the radiation as you are to die in a terrorist bomb on your flight.
Peter Rez, from Arizona State University, said the probability of dying from radiation from a body scanner and that of being killed in a terror attack are both about one in 30 million.
He said: 'The thing that worries me the most, is not what happens if the machine works as advertised, but what happens if it doesn't.
A potential malfunction could increase the radiation dose, he said.
Rez has studied the radiation doses of backscatter scanners using the images produced by the machines. He discovered that the radiation dose was often higher than the manufacturers claimed.
Rez suggested that the statistical coincidence means that there is really no case to be made for deploying any kind of body-scanning machine - the risk is identical.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
well, that may be what the govt is looking for to kill the population off?
He told me to opt out of the scanners.
Which I do.
I have no plans on flying anytime soon. I do plan on going back to the East Coast to visit. I am going to take the train.
If I do fly ever again I am not going thru that evil machine.
From a post of mine on another thread:
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You can get as much as 660 micro-REMS per hour in flight, with 250 micro REMS per hour being a low average. That’s at least ten times ground level background.
If the xray scanners are harmful with their less-than-a-second less than 25 microrem scan, airline flight is many many times more dangerous.
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercialflights.html
Plus, lots of airline radiation is heavy particles and neutrons, not just low energy x-rays.
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So air flight gives you at least 200 uREM/hour. This memo:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/fda-backscatter-response.pdf
says that the scanners are limited by law to 25 uREM per scan, and you’ll find actual measurements in the 5 uREM to 9 uREM from AS&E. (I’ve looked for other dose numbers, if you have a reference to actual levels please post it, and please no to “chest xray” comparisons). Any REAL data on scanner dose levels.
So you get more dose in flight. Plus, the in-flight dose is made up of higher energy photons mixed with particles from cosmic rays, and a bunch of really hot neutrons. Looking at the numbers, you can get more dose in an hour on a plane than you get from a scanner. So if scanners are dangerous, flight is much more so.
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The BIER report of radiation risks:
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/brp/radon_division/BEIR VII Preliminary Report.pdf
You have to cut n paste the link, it does not post right.
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The risk of a scanner putting out “too much” radiation is absurd. They would not put in a kilowatt generator when a milliwatt is all that’s needed. it’s like my three-cell maglite going out of whack and turning into a killer laser beam.
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Here is an interesting tool that pilots use to determine in-flight radiation dose:
http://jag.cami.jccbi.gov/cariprofile.asp
One Sievert= 100,000,000 microREM or 100,000 millirem
Nope, they just let the back scatter xrays be the death panels that allow social security to be solvent in the future..
Go with the T-Ray or millimeter rays and you don’t get the high energy rays. Of course, they still need a little technological tweaking, but it won’t be long before you see them.
I am fairly confident that the machines used in large hospitals are well maintained and checked for malfunctions.
Even so there have been cases of malfunctioning machines in medical centers that have emitted very high radiation.
Do you really trust the TSA to insure that the airport machines are functioning properly?
I don’t.
“Even so there have been cases of malfunctioning machines in medical centers that have emitted very high radiation.”
There was a gamma therapy machine with an isotope source that had a shutter get stuck, yes. Very famous software case.
If I were to design a TSA-type scanner I’d make it with a source that could only put out so much, and that amount would be less than the standard. AS&E makes these scanners, thousands per month, and they are used at border checkpoint to look for contraband and people hiding. They’ve been making them for 20 years (I applied for work there 20 years ago or thereabouts).
Consider the common laser pointer- it’s a Class IIIb, and you really can’t make it a Class IV burner.
A similar analogy would be, not letting people own semi-auto guns because they might, all of a sudden, turn into machine guns. Give the designers some credit, they know they are dealing with TSA type people.
I should have pointed out that the hospital machines were designed to produce very high levels to begin with. If you powered them with an old Coleman lantern mantle (or Fiestaware plate)they’d never emit much, even pedal-to-the-metal.
About the only good news is that the TSA freaks get to stand around these things, unprotected, for hours on end every day. They are too dumb to understand that they are the expendable thugs at the bottom of the Obama food chain.
If I were to exchange “friendly” chitchat with a TSA agent, I’d casually plant a little seed of knowledge. :)
I travel A LOT.
Just two days ago TSA went through my bag with a fine tooth comb. They took everything out and examined everything for 4 or 5 minutes. They then took it back through the xray machine.
The machine operator kept saying she saw a bottle of liquid in the bag. The ‘examiner’ couldn’t find it. That’s because there was no liquid in the bag.
They finally figured out they were examining the WRONG BAG. The bag with the liquid belonged to the women with the baby in the line in front of me.
They can’t remember which bag had the bottle of liquid and you trust them to recognize when an xray machine is malfunctioning? LOL
There is absolutely no benefit to me or to anyone else (except for the owners of the companies that make the scanners) of subjecting myself to the radiation from those scans. It's immoral to force people to assume a risk that's of no benefit to them.
I'm not planning on flying until adults are back in charge.
Not if I don’t fly.
That’s what the death panels are for. Maybe if you have voted the right way and we think you can still contribute something to society, we’ll give you some treatment.
Personally, it’s not really the radiation part that bothers me. But the government also went to great lengths to warn us about the dangers of tanning beds, then goes on to tax them, and now wants to subject us to this kind of crap.
“you trust them to recognize when an xray machine is malfunctioning?”
No more than I expect the flight attendant to know how to balance fuel flow in the turbojet or expect the pilot to align the guidance system.
The airline hires adults who do know.
Who maintains the bag scanners? What if one went up like a nova star and took out LAX?
“He discovered that the radiation dose was often higher than the manufacturers claimed. “
He should publish his numbers. If the spec is “less than 25”, the manufacturer claims 9, and he measures 12, what’s wrong? It’s under spec and the spec is chosen so that 1000 scans will equal “one chest xray”, lol!
Without actually showing his work he’s just being alarmist.
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