Posted on 11/26/2010 4:06:02 PM PST by FTJM
Federal officials claim radiation risks from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's new full-body scanners are low, but several scientists are calling on the administration to rethink whether the numbers really add up.
The TSA says the radiation from its security scans amounts to about a thousandth of the amount a patient receives from a standard chest X-ray, or an amount "equivalent to two minutes of flying on an airplane."
But a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe not only conducted his own study, finding the radiation exposure 10 times what the TSA estimates, but also argues that the health risks aren't mathematically worth taking.
Prof. Peter Rez explained to MSNBC that while the risk of getting a fatal cancer from the screening is minuscule, it's about equal to the probability an airplane will get blown up by a terrorist. Either way, the professor argues, dead is dead.
"There is not a case to be made for deploying [the scanners] to prevent such a low probability event," Rez says.
Join tens of thousands of Americans in a petition demanding action against the intrusive airport screening procedures implemented by Janet Napolitano and send a letter to Congress, President Obama and others telling them exactly what you think about the issue.
Furthermore, a team of scientists from the University of California San Francisco have written a letter to the White House warning that the scanners present – above and beyond the risks to the general population – "potential serious health risks" to certain segments of society, such as the elderly and the pregnant.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
in before the “WND tinfoil” guy.
Are we allowed to be outraged about this, o WND tinfoil guy? Do we have your blessing?
The FAA announced today that it will require American-based commercial airliners to carry a live bomb on board during all flights, domestic or foreign, beginning the 15th of next month.
Dwight Randolph, head of the FAA's Safety and Security Division, told reporters at a press conference held in Washington, D.C., this afternoon that the rule requiring all commercial flights to carry a bomb on board "has been instituted by this department as a positive safety measure designed to reduce the odds of a terrorist bomb being placed on American airplanes. This will make the skies much safer for citizens of this country, help defuse the terrorist hysteria now rampant around the globe, and aid in the restoration of the economic health of America's airline industry."
When asked by reporters to explain how placing a live bomb on an airplane could possibly be considered a safety measure, Randolph referred them to a transcript of last month's meeting of the Rules Committee of the FAA's Safety and Security Division. At that meeting, Daniel Plotnick, professor of mathematics and physics at Pottawattamie University, testified that "the odds of a terrorist bomb being placed on a commercial American airliner have been calculated to be approximately 3,500,000 to one."
After a hushed conference between committee members the chairman, Alfred Braneded, asked the professor, "What are the odds of two terrorist bombs being placed on the same airplane?"
Plotnick was unable to answer the question directly, but said that he could calculate the answer in about two days if the committee would arrange for him to have access to a computer at least as powerful as the one he was accustomed to using at Pottawattamie University.
Braneded promptly recessed the hearings for two days and made arrangements for Plotnick to have the use of one of the FAA's computers to perform his calculations. When the hearings resumed, Plotnick informed the committee members that "the odds of there being two terrorist bombs on the same plane are more than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (one billion billion) to one."
The members of the Rules Committee caucused for several hours, then Chairman Braneded announced that "after careful analysis of the statistical difference between the odds of having one bomb on an airplane and the odds of having two bombs on the same airplane, it has become obvious that a rule requiring every airplane to carry a bomb on every flight would reduce the chances of a terrorist bomb being placed on any given airplane by a factor of more than 3 billion to one. Faced with numbers like these, we would be criminally negligent if we didn't recommend the immediate adoption of such a rule in the interest of public safety."
After answering a few more questions, Randolph summed up by telling reporters, "if this rule increases aircraft safety as much as we have projected, then I am going to make a recommendation to the President that we use the same means to prevent terrorist attacks on United States property everywhere--by hiding a live bomb on the premises of our government buildings around the globe."
Not if they get smart.
On the other hand, if our government is going to deprive us of Constitutional rights on the basis that we are at war (which is what this form of terrorism is), then it ought to declare war and attack the enemy.
What about second-hand radiation? That was a critical part to the smoking action.
Any calculation of induced cancer is a joke.
They take 5 to 20 years or more for induction, so
NO ONE HAS ANY DATA.
Any accurate estimation requires knowing the particles
(terahertz EM photons, or neutrons, or whatever)
or electromagnetic radiation emitted from the machines
(energy, frequency, spectrum, energy density at the target,
dose delivered, depth dose, etc.)
and despite the comments, have not seen this - but waiting.
I get it!
About the same odds as O doing a credible job as president if he is re-elected.....
"In addition, it appears that real independent safety data do not exist. A search, ultimately finding top FDA radiation physics staff, suggests that the relevant radiation quantity, the Flux [photons per unit area and time (because this is a scanning device)] has not been characterized. Instead an indirect test (Air Kerma) was made that emphasized the whole body exposure value, and thus it appears that the danger is low when compared to cosmic rays during airplane travel and a chest X-ray dose.
In summary, if the key data (flux-integrated photons per unit values) were available, it would be straightforward to accurately model the dose being deposited in the skin and adjacent tissues using available computer codes, which would resolve the potential concerns over radiation damage."
There may be potential serious health risks to several other categories of people: the TSA equipment operators themselves, fliers who have undergone radiation therapy, frequent fliers, etc.
The disregard for common sense (and our Constitutional rights) is appalling. We have people claiming “second hand smoke” cancers, cancers caused by asbestos (after 20-30 years, how can such an etiology be proven?), the list seems endless with gloom and doom health problems.
Yet, the potential of health problems developing with scanner technology is blown off, totally ignored just because they enjoy ogeling men’s and women’s, INCLUDING CHILDREN’s nude bodies with scanners. Perverts.
Meanwhle, common sense in Israel’s airline passenger security services reign over all the diminishing free world but we ignore them too.
Note to self: save this link for holiday political discussions with family members who think the TSA scanners are no big deal.
No worry, Obamascare will fix all the cancers for freeee!
Remember the sizing x-ray machines in shoe stores?
Weren’t they outlawed???
The TSA says the radiation from its security scans amounts to about a thousandth of the amount a patient receives from a standard chest X-ray, or an amount "equivalent to two minutes of flying on an airplane." But a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe not only conducted his own study, finding the radiation exposure 10 times what the TSA estimates, but also argues that the health risks aren't mathematically worth taking. Prof. Peter Rez explained to MSNBC that while the risk of getting a fatal cancer from the screening is minuscule, it's about equal to the probability an airplane will get blown up by a terrorist. Either way, the professor argues, dead is dead.Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Ping. Thanks FTJM.
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