I’M FROM THE GOVERNMENT…
The intelligent statement 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.’” come to my thoughts as soon as I think about the mounting din regarding the Transportation Security Administration’s recent procedure of full body scanning airport users.
ELEVATED DOSES OF RADIATION FROM TSA BODY SCANNERS A BASIS FOR CONCERN
A faction of experts uttered their unease to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren. Dr. John W. Sedat, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, UC, San Francisco and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, in a well-thought-out memo was joined by three other similarly credentialed faculty members in expressing their concerns in that letter dated April 6, 2010. In that letter they articulated “concerns about the potential serious health risks” about the “the dose to the skin may be dangerously high” that the Transportation Safety Administration is subjecting passengers too at airports across the USA.. In that dispatch they pointed out that radiation boosts cancer consequences by harming the DNA and various components within the cells.
WHAT THE RADIATION INVADES, NOT THE DOSAGE, MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
The scanners the Transportation Safety Administration operates concentrate the largest part of the energy on the surface of the skin and go through a few millimeters into the skin. The anxiety is that there are a quantity of very radiation-sensitive tissues close to the skin such as testes, eyes, and circulating blood.
When this is taken into account, it looks illusory to assert that the amount being administered is a thousand times less than a chest X-ray, or, that it is considerably less than what air travelers are exposed to in-flight. It is the amount of the tissue exposed that matters when the effects of radiation are evaluated.
ARE YOU, OR SOMEONE YOU HAVE AFFECTION FOR, IN ONE OF THESE GROUPS?
New borns, little kids, pregnant women, the elderly, people having impaired immunity (those with HIV infection, cancer patients, people with immune deficiency disorders, and people with defective DNA repair mechanism are a number of groups of people that are at a more elevated risk than the general public. At this time the TSA is not differentiating between these groups based on the risks.
Seniors are also in a individual group when it comes to radiation exposure. Their DNA accumulates a substantial quantity of unrepaired harm, to the point where even small doses of radiation can start the occurrence of skin cancers, including melanoma which which could become life threatening. Exposing their eyes to low doses of radiation is also a concern, since exposure to radiation can boost their danger of developing cataracts.
YOU CANNOT PUT OUR TRUST IN THE PROFESSIONALS
Consider when the American College of Radiology assured us that the CT scans were safe and sound and that the radiation was equal to one chest X-ray. At the present we have learned that the dose that is in a CT scan is equal to 1,000 chest X-rays. Based on the past, it can pretty much be predicted that when the real effects of these full body scanners on wellbeing become identified, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and the rest of the “officials” who insist the scanners are safe and sound will no longer be around.