Posted on 11/23/2010 11:23:00 AM PST by FS11
With Medical Pros and Scientists now saying that the cancer risk of TSA scanners may be 20 times higher than first estimated and could be particularly risky for children because the beam concentrates on the skin -- one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the human body, it would be helpful for Freeper Medical Professionals to advise about the cancer risks.
1. Refuse the Full Body Radiation Scans citing the Cancer Causing Risk.
2. Only submit to a Pat Down after the TSA Thug has changed gloves and advised you of his Probable Cause for the search.
3. Have your Pat Down Video recorded.
Excellant.
There is no way to ‘guesstimate” the “safety?” of the scannners as they are not used in a medical facility that has monitoring with checks and balances in place.
TSA X-ray chaos - Body scanner makers spend big on lobbying
By Hank
http://www.science20.com/print/73835
Created Nov 22 2010 - 4:48pm
L-3 Communications, which sold $40 million in scanners to TSA, doubled its lobbyist spending in the last five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance its cause in Washington.
Deepak Chopra, Chairman and CEO of OSI Systems, Inc., whose subsidiary Rapiscan Systems makes one of the most commonly used backscatter x-ray machines, accompanied President Barack Obama to Mumbai and attended the US India Business Entrepreneurship meeting, which was held by the US India Business Council. The government has spent almost $42 million with Rapiscan Systems and lobbying expenses by that company also were 5X. They even hired Michael Chertoff , the second Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush.
A Utah Congressman is proposing legislation to use the ‘porno scanners’ only as a back up but you can’t thank Republicans for caring more about privacy if it goes through - there are just as many Republican lobbyists working for these industries as Democrats.
The big question people have for science is can these machines give you cancer?
Answer:
http://www.science20.com/adaptive_complexity/airport_body_scanner_wont_give_you_cancer
No problem.... it is just as safe as thalidomide. Your government says so.
The human body’s reaction to radiation is two-fold.
The level of the exposure, and the duration of the exposure. From practical experience, the duration is just over a second. As for the intensity .... is it any more intense than a cell phone?
The point I’m trying to make is, essentially (IMHO - and yes, I’m entitled to one) the radiation cry is a farce. You will get more radition exposure from a microwave oven, walking to your car in the great outdoors, or answering yoru cell phone.
What I object to is being LIED to. We were told - point blank - that the naked pictures were NOT going to be stored, that they would be erased at the end of the day. This was obvously a lie - and I would like to see those responsible tried for ‘x’ thousand independant charges of violations of privacy - and let them spend the next couple of decades behind bars. Actions have consequences.
But, to cry that this is a medical risk - is, IMHO; simply looking for a excuse.
The big question people have for science is can these machines give you cancer?
Answer:
airport_body_scanner_wont_give_you_cancer
3 posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 1:29:05 PM by KeyLargo
So you believe the “scientist” prostitutes hired by the companies that make the cancer causing scans.
Independent Reputable Scientists say that BO’s TSA Scanners do pose a cancer risk.
so what if you have all this info on YOUR practical experience....
we have no way of knowing if these machines are operating correctly or how they are monitored???
BFL
So we are faced with either RADS or PATS molestation by the TSA
Well, then you have the blog by the guy who is a radiation physicist or something like that you says they are literal death traps. It was vague but I’ll take his word for it until I see something that states otherwise.
8 posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 1:39:27 PM by Peter from Rutland
I found this on howstuffworks.com, a bit more reassuring.
Do “backscatter” X-ray systems pose a risk to frequent fliers?
February 27, 2007
If you were pulled out of line at an airport security checkpoint and asked to choose between a pat-down and a very revealing X-ray, which would you choose? In a three-month trial that began in the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on February 23, 2007, most passengers chose the X-ray, known as the Z Backscatter X-ray system. Backscatter technology can detect objects that regular X-ray scanners and metal detectors can’t pick up very well, like ceramic knives, drugs and liquid explosives.
This is the technology that caused a privacy uproar when it was first revealed as a possible addition to airport security. The backscatter X-ray scanner sees through clothes and is capable of producing photo-quality views of its subject. So in theory, passengers selected for additional screening with the backscatter system could be subjecting themselves to a peep show by airport employees.
The backscatter system works differently than the usual X-ray scanners that check out your carry-on luggage.
The X-ray scanners we send our carry-on bags through are usually dual-energy X-ray systems. In this type of system, the X-ray source sends out a single X-ray beam. Different types of materials — organic, inorganic and metallic, for instance — react differently to X-rays, which are basically very high-energy light photons. Depending on the density and atomic properties of an object, it may absorb X-rays, let X-rays pass right through or scatter the X-rays on impact. Organic material, like skin, bananas and liquid explosives, tend to let X-rays pass through them. In a dual-energy system, after the X-rays interact with the objects in your carry-on bag, they reach three barriers: a detector that picks up the pattern created by both high- and low-energy absorption and pass-through; a filter that then removes the lower-energy X-rays; and then a high-energy detector, which picks up the pattern of the high-energy X-ray absorption and pass-through. A computer program then compares the images from the two detectors in order to provide a very clear, color-coded image of the different types of materials in your bag. It’s the comparison of the first detector’s image with the last detector’s image that highlights the “low-energy objects” — mostly the organic stuff — in the bag.
The Z Backscatter system made by American Science and Engineering works differently. Instead of relying on images created by the absorption and pass-through properties of the objects being X-rayed, the backscatter system picks up images produced when materials scatter X-ray photons. An X-ray scatter pattern is more specific than an absorption pattern when it comes to identifying organics. A scatter pattern changes depending on the element it’s interacting with — carbon, hydrogen or lithium, for instance. Elements with lower atomic numbers (fewer protons) on the periodic table scatter X-ray photons very powerfully, while elements located farther down on the periodic table tend to absorb more photons than they scatter. Most organics are located closer to the start of the periodic table. So backscatter systems are very good at imaging organic material — much better than dual-energy systems. They easily pick up the scatter patterns of drugs and explosives and body parts. This ability to detect and identify organic material, along with a technology called “Flying Spot” that lets the machine pinpoint the location of a particular X-ray beam at any given moment in time, allow backscatter images to be incredibly accurate and lifelike.
It’s also why some people object to incorporating the technology into airport security checkpoints. Most of us don’t want strangers viewing incredibly accurate and lifelike pictures of our bodies. And yes, it’s possible for backscatter X-raying to produce photo-quality images of what’s going on beneath our clothes. But because of privacy concerns, for the time being, the peep show has been distorted: The trial system in Phoenix produces cartoon-like outlines of the passengers being X-rayed, not photo-quality images, and the private areas are blurred.
Backscatter X-ray Images
Image courtesy AP
Left: The type of image the test system in Phoenix is producing
Right: What Z Backscatter is capable of
Some wonder how, then, the system can actually boost security. And the manufacturer, American Science and Engineering, Inc., admits that distorting the image does decrease the machine’s usefulness. What if someone tapes a vial of liquid explosives to his scrotum? This is one of the issues the trial run in Phoenix hopes to resolve. Can a backscatter system still increase security if its images are obscured?
The other issue besides privacy that has surrounded backscatter X-raying has to do with radiation exposure. Most of us do not get X-rayed on a regular basis; and when we do get X-rayed in a hospital or doctor’s office, we’ve got a lead vest thrown over our vital organs. But at airports, there’s no lead vest. So are people who travel a lot going to be subjected to dangerous levels of radiation if they get backscattered too often? Most experts say no. According to the Health Physics Society (HPS), a person undergoing a backscatter scan receives approximately 0.005 millirems (mrem, a unit of absorbed radiation). American Science and Engineering, Inc., actually puts that number slightly higher, in the area of .009 mrem. According to U.S. regulatory agencies, 1 mrem per year is a negligible dose of radiation, and 25 mrem per year from a single source is the upper limit of safe radiation exposure. Using the HPS numbers, it would take 200 backscatter scans in a year to reach a negligible dose — 1 mrem — of radiation. You receive 1 mrem from three hours on an airplane, from two days in Denver or from three days in Atlanta. And it would take 5,000 scans in a year to reach the upper limit of safety. A traveler would have to get 100 backscatter scans per week, every week, for a year, in order to be in real danger from the radiation. Few frequent flyers fly that frequently.
... they are justified in citing the older studies. Here's why: radiation biology (not to mention the physics of x-rays) is an old and well understood science. Since the beginning of the Manhattan Project (at least), the biological effects of radiation have been a subject of intense scrutiny. We know how to measure exposure, what the likely effects of various doses are, etc. You don't need new studies to reinvent the wheel.This "expert" is a jake. He doesn't even know that health effect radiation date and studies goes back to Roentgen who invented the X-Ray emiiter in 1895 and Marie Curie of the same era who coined the term "radioactivity" as she pioneered the study of it. She initiated and directed the first studies of cancers caused by radioactivity. In 1932 she founded the Curie Institute of Oncology -- cancer medicine in Warsaw, Poland.
we have no way of knowing if these machines are operating correctly or how they are monitored???
9 posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 1:40:08 PM by Recovering Ex-hippie
And who is calibrating these machines to make sure there are no malfunctions in radiation exposure time or dose?
Sorry but I have no trust for the truthfullness or competence of BO’s TSA Scum.
“You will get more radition exposure from a microwave oven, walking to your car in the great outdoors, or answering yoru cell phone.”
I disagree. I’m not claiming the TSA X rays are necessarily harmful, but they are a non-trivial amount of X rays nonetheless.
Let me look for some data....
The specific type of radiation is critical as to how it acts upon the organs, cell structures, cells and intra-cell structures. Thus the specific sites of the exposure are also critical. We simply do not have a real history of the health effects of back scatter x-rays and terahertz emiiters. These are new forms of radiating things.
You are aware that these are microwaves, right? Do you understand the difference between microwaves and Alpha or Beta particles?
These are REFLECTED microwaves, they do not see your skeleton. They penetrate clothing, until they hit something ‘firmer’ (such as skin, metal or plastic) then they are reflected.
Exactly. We’ve had MRIs that nobody’s calibrated for weeks giving out far higher levels of radiation to hundreds of patients during that time, some losing hair from radiation exposure.
Machines are great but they can easily get out of tune especially when frequently used.
Who’s calibrating them? Special training? How often are they being calibrated? How often are they checked? Where’s the accountability for verifying they ae calibrated? Are there tangible negative consequences if people in charge are operating a machine that isn’t calibrated and zapping people with higher radiation levels? Will there be compensation to flyers who are zapped by zappers that are out of tune?
These people are GLORIFIED BAGGAGE HANDLERS given a phony title of “officer”. They are not scientists and not medical professionals and have absolutely NO IDEA if the machine is working right or not. Whether it is not calibrated and you’re getting more radiation than you ought to or not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.