I’M FROM THE GOVERNMENT…
The sensible declaration of President Ronald Reagan, „The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.'“ occur in my thoughts when I contemplate the mounting din around the Transportation Security Administration’s new-found rule of full body scanning fliers.
HIGH-LEVEL DOSES OF RADIATION FROM TSA BODY SCANNERS A GROUNDS FOR INTEREST
A faction of experts voiced their concern to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren. Dr. John W. Sedat, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, in a well-thought-out note was joined by three other similarly credentialed faculty members in expressing their concerns in that letter dated April 6, 2010. In that correspondence they articulated „concerns about the potential serious health risks“ about the „the dose to the skin may be dangerously high“ that the TSA is subjecting passengers too at airports around the USA.. In that epistle they pointed out that radiation boosts cancer threats by damaging the DNA and several components in the cells.
WHAT THE RADIATION INVADES, NOT THE DOSAGE, MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
The scanners the Transportation Safety Administration uses focus the largest part of the energy on the surface of the skin and pierce a few millimeters into the skin. The anxiety is that there are a number of very radiation-sensitive tissues close to the skin such as testes, eyes, and circulating blood.
In light of this, it appears unreliable to contend that the quantity being administered is a thousand times less than a chest X-ray, or, that it is a lot less than what passengers are exposed to in-flight. It is the volume of the tissue exposed that is important when the effects of radiation damage are evaluated.
ARE YOU, OR SOMEONE YOU CARE FOR, IN ONE OF THESE CLASSES?
Infants, little kids, pregnant women, seniors, people having impaired immunity (those with HIV infection, cancer patients, people with immune deficiency diseases, and people with abnormal DNA repair mechanism are a number of categories of people that are at a much higher risk than others. At this time the Transportation Safety Administration is not differentiating between these groups and others based on the dangers.
Elderly are also in a particular class when it comes to radiation exposure. Their DNA accumulates a significant amount of unrepaired harm, to the point that even low doses of radiation can cause the promotion of skin cancers, including melanoma which can have the potential of becoming life threatening. Exposing their eyes to low doses of radiation is also a concern, since exposure to radiation could encourage their hazard of developing cataracts.
WE CAN’T RELY ON THE EXPERTS
Remember when the American College of Radiology reassured us that the CT scans were safe and sound and that the radiation amounted to one chest X-ray. At this point we have learned that the dose that is in a CT scan is equal to one thousand chest X-rays. Based on the past, it can pretty much be predicted that when the real effects of these full body scanners on health become identified, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and the rest of the „officials“ who assert the scanners are harmless will be long gone.
