Late last year, the American Pilots Association persuaded the TSA to allow pilots exemption from screening by full-body scanners. Captain Dave Bates, president of the association, argued that pilots "experience significantly higher exposure than most other occupations, and there is mounting evidence of higher-than-average cancer rates as a consequence." (1)
But what about the rest of us?
I fly twice a week, northern to southern California, to and from work. I am also the author of a biography of pioneer radiation scientist Alice Stewart, who discovered, in the 1950s, that if you x-ray a pregnant woman, you double the risk of a childhood cancer ("The Woman Who Knew too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation"). Media discussions of airport scanners have focused on privacy issues, but these pale beside the danger of increased radiation exposure.
When Dr. Stewart published her findings about the link between fetal x-rays and childhood cancer (2), she met with tremendous opposition. The dose emitted by x-rays was a fraction of the dose experts "knew" was safe -- how could it possibly kill a child? So contrary were her findings to what everyone was sure of that doctors went right on x-raying pregnant women. Stewart hung in there, proving her case, but it took until the 1980s before doctors stopped x-raying pregnant women, all the while "experts" were reassuring us that the technology was safe.
"People don't believe in radiation because it's out of sight, out of mind," as Stewart said; "then twenty or thirty years later, someone drops dead." Radiation can't be seen, smelled, or touched. Since it may take decades for its effects to be felt, it's difficult to trace a cancer to a specific exposure. But radiation is the deadliest of carcinogens, the only one that affects every single organ in the body. And there is little agreement about how low a dose is a safe dose, to this day.
Since the 1930s, when the International Commission on Radiation Protection began setting guidelines for permissible exposure, it has been lowering the permissible dose -- by a factor of 2 in 1950, then again by a factor of about 3 in 1956. (3) (Permissible dose is set lower as dangers are found to be higher.)
"There is something disturbing about the repeated assurances, 'this time folks, we have got it right,' comments Dr. Morris Greenberg, a senior public official in Britain, "when on each occasion, a previous understatement of hazard is revealed." (4) Meanwhile, each successive report of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation committee, a committee of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, has acknowledged a greater danger to low-dose radiation. Their most recent report states there is "no evidence of a threshold below which no cellular damage occurs." (5) That is, even the lowest of doses may be dangerous, as Stewart claimed.
X-ray equipment is dangerous. Even highly trained technicians may get it wrong -- as we saw in the overdosing of hundreds of patients from CT scans at hospitals last year. (6) Do we really want minimally trained airport security workers, in the confusion and rush of security lines, operating this machinery? And how about risk to the workers themselves -- where are the long-term studies assuring us about them?
Physicians and scientists at the University of California, San Francisco wrote a "Letter of Concern" cautioning that the x-ray beam of airport body scanners is "very intense." A glitch could result in "an intense radiation dose to a single spot on the skin." These scientists, experts in cancer, biophysics, biochemistry, and imaging, note "the proximity of the testicles to skin" and worry about the effects of radiation on the cornea. They warn that "real independent safety data do not exist," that there has not been "sufficient review of the intermediate and long-term effects of radiation exposure associated with airport scanners."
"There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations," the scientists conclude. (7)
Vulnerable populations? That's a lot of us. A radiation dose is not an absolute (8), in terms of effect, but varies according to how old we are, whether we're female or male, how healthy we are, how well or badly nourished, how weakened by previous exposures to illness, chemicals, or radiation.
A fetus is very vulnerable, as Stewart discovered. Should pregnant women be walking through these scanners? How about women who do not know they're pregnant? How about children and people over 65? How about anyone who's had cancer or cancer treatments or other immune-compromising conditions that make them more vulnerable to radiation? With one in three in our population getting cancer, that's a lot of vulnerable people.
As an all-too-frequent flyer, female, over 65, with a two-decade history of commuting and a cumulative radiation exposure equivalent to some pilots, I'm taking the pat-down, as humiliating and harassing as it is.
References:
(1) "American Airlines Pilots Revolt Against TSA,"
(2) Alice Stewart, "A Survey of Childhood Malignancies," British
Medical Journal, June 28, 1958; follow-up in 1961,
Stewart's quotes are from Greene, The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice
Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation, University of Michigan Press,
1999
(3) Lauriston S. Taylor, "History of the International Commission
on Radiological Protection," Health Physics, 1: 97-104. Also, Peter
Bunyard, "Radiation risks -- how low can one get?" Ecologist, Sept/Oct
1978, 8, 5
(4) Morris Greenberg, "The Evolution of Attitudes to the Human
Hazards of Ionizing Radiation and to its Investigators," American
Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1991, 20, 717-2
(5) BEIR VII www.slidefinder.net/A/Abrams_BEIR_VII_PPT/28907822/p2
(6) Walt Bogdanich, "California tightens oversight of CT scans", NYT,
Oct 1, 2010
(7) UCSF Scientists Speak Out Against Airport Full-Body Scans,"
(8) For the "variability of actual health effects of radiation in
various populations," see "Letter to the BEIR VII Committee of the
National Academy of Sciences," from 133 organizations and individuals
from 13 countries worldwide,
Dr. Maoshing Ni: Natural Ways to Protect Against Radiation
Dr. Richard Palmquist: Radiation Protection for Pets: 13 Tips
Brad Hirschfield: Understanding: The Most Forgotten Weapon in the War on Terror
This article expresses a lot of concerns, with a heavy dose of appeal to emotion. Yet, the issue here is context: how much are the scanners providing? How much are you getting from the plane ride? If all of those fear-factors the author provided are of importance to you then DON'T FLY AT ALL!
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/nov/18/john-pistole/tsa-administrator-claims-new-body-scanners-emit-mu/
an excerpt:
"A single chest X-ray exposes a person to between 8,000 and 10,000 microrems (or 8 to 10 millirems), according to experts at Princeton University and the Department of Energy. A pack-a-day smoker exposes himself to 15,000 to 20,000 microrems of radiation a year (tobacco leaves used in making cigarettes contain radioactive lead and polonium). Put simply, it would take at least 3,300 body scans to reach the equivalent of one chest X-ray.
What's also important to note -- and a bit scary -- is that you're being exposed to radiation right now. Radiation is naturally occurring in our environment no matter where you are. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that each year, the average adult is exposed to 300 millirems of naturally occurring radiation (300,000 microrems) and 60 millirems (60,000 microrems) of man-made radiation. Pistole, in his claim, is talking about naturally occurring cosmic radiation you're exposed to during airplane travel."
I am currently directly involved with this issue. I was recently made ill for a week by my first scan in San Diego. So far the TSA replied to my complaint with a form letter extolling the virtues of their new scanners & my senator replied with a form letter about pat-downs. The only way these people will wake up is if concern is shown from enough of us. If you or your loved ones need to fly like I do please email or call your senator today and let them know these machines are hurting the same people they are supposed to protect!
i know that flying at night helps minimize radiation exposure from the sun; and i know that our thyroids take a beating trying to metabolize all of the excess radiation.
i don't know much about the scanners (and yes i will take the grope anyday, same goes for my kids); and this may be truly naieve to ask, but is there such thing as "second-hand radiation" as there is with "second-hand smoke?" i don't want to be anywhere near those things!
i'll be your first fan! thanks for sharing your experience.
Of course, we're all in "security theater" at airports. I think its main function is to promote reassurance and docility.
It's a militant term to me; I don't believe in what it suggests.
But not now.
It was supplanted by the prior comment.
But you're right - the pantomime must go on, and Mr Chertoff wants his bonus.
I have been on 4 flights since this started. I asked EACH time in the initial check for ID & ticket, before going through security, which types of machines they were. The old ones, or the new back scatter machines. The TSA workers were not forthcoming and seemed to just want to push me through the line. I understand they are busy, but if they can't, or refuse, to answer questions, that is a glaring red flag.
This whole system was done haphazardly, isn't safe, and who ever gave this the OK needs to be fired. Don't care who it is.
X ray technicians do not set the technique (dose on a CT scan) it is done automatically and is pre set by the manufacturer. Those over exposures were the result of manufacturer error not x ray technician error.
"where are the long-term studies assuring us about them?"
I was part of a long term study on radiation exposure. ( I was a medical radiation worker)
I will opt for search rather than be exposed by those back scatter scanners.
Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication."
In layman's terms what Alexandrov and his team discovered is that the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself: normal DNA replication and critical gene expression.
http://www.helium.com/items/2037343-tsa-terahertz-scanners-tear-apart-human-dna
They are not using those types of scanners as far as i know. They are using back scatter xrays.
all our troops should be brought home and stationed on flights, 4 soldiers per flight, 2 in back, 2 in front, this would give them something productive and valuable to do, save money and international prestige and make air travel function normally again
there will be no end to mr chertoff's friends selling bizarre invasive machines to the government for big money until no one flies anymore - mr chertoff could are less I am sure of it
They are not new wavelengths.
They are Compton scatter.
"what about the effect on the eyes'
The cornea is very radiosensative because it's cellular turnover is very rapid. xrays are know to cause cataracts.
"ll radiation is not the same at all - don't be fooled'
Radiation from xray machines are basically all the same. The back scatter scanners use low energy Compton scatter.
The x-ray equipment in airports is different. It is looking at the surface of the body and the detector is on the same side as the source and therefore the x-ray radiation is chosen to interact strongly with the surface of the body. I predict an increase in skin cancer and law suites.
The exposure and dose has nothing to do with what side the emitter and and detector are on.