Progressively more and more experts are speaking out against naked body scanners. It almost seems repetitious to report on the ludicrous actions of the TSA, which seem to be increasingly more nefarious each day. However, the naked body scanners are still instituted at major airports, which means that TSA must be continually exposed. Radiation scientists are helping to do just that, with numerous pieces of information regarding the dangers of body scanner radiation surfacing around the web.
Famous neurologist Dr. Russel Blaylock recently commented on the subject:
The growing outrage over the Transportation Security Administration’s new policy of backscatter scanning of airline passengers and enhanced pat-downs brings to mind these wise words from 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. So, what is all the concern really about – will these radiation scanners increase your risk of cancer or other diseases? A group of scientists and professors from the University of California at San Francisco voiced their concern to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren in a well-stated letter back in April.
The letter Dr. Blaylock is referring to is a letter from the University of California, San Francisco faculty. The letter, highlighting the radiation dangers of the machines, was signed by Doctors John Sedat Ph.D., David Agard, Ph.D., Marc Shuman, M.D., and Robert Stroud, Ph.D.
An excerpt from the letter, which can be read in its entirety here (PDF format), summarizes their concern:
We are writing to call your attention to serious concerns about the potential health risks of the recently adopted whole body backscatter X-ray airport security scanners. This is an urgent situation as these X-ray scanners are rapidly being implemented as a primary screening step for all air travel passengers.
Some argue that the scanners pose no real health risk, as travelers are subjected to similar or higher levels of radiation simply from flying. During high-altitude flights, cosmic radiation is a factor. The difference, however, is the concentration. While the body scanners hone in on the skin, and other vital organs in the body, the cosmic radiation experienced during flights is distributed across the entire body. Quite simply, the focus of the radiation is a large player.
The letter, written by multiple doctors, explains this:
Unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies (28keV). The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high.
The letter goes on to mention other concerns associated with the body scanners. One of which is the onset of breast cancer in some women. Certain women are extremely sensitive to mutagenesis-provoking radiation, that can lead to breast cancer. So much so that mammograms are not performed on them. The problem lies in their DNA repair mechanisms, rendering them extremely vulnerable to cancer. The body scanners present an extremely large risk to these women.
Body scanners do not only damage our health, but invade our privacy. The use of naked body scanners should be halted, and the risks re-evaluated (or even evaluated to begin with).
The phrase 'enhanced pat down' is meant to scare us into the scanner. My husband and I opted out of the scanner in October 2011 in Detroit and were treated nicely by the TSA people (female for me and male for my husband) who explained what they were going to do before and during the pat down, which was just run their hands, all over our bodies. Sometimes they used the back of their hands, as if that was less offensive.