What does REM mean?
Roentgen Equivalent Man. What does RAD mean?
I’m going to assume you know what the units are, so we’re on the same page.
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. Thats 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.
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.