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Need to discuss radiation risks of airport scanning

I’ve read nothing about the accumulated radiation risk. Will pregnant women be forced to submit? What about women who aren’t certain that they’re pregnant?

Getting X-Rayed at the Airport: Radiation Risk Anyone? Huffington Post Carol Felsenthal December 30, 2009 I read in both Chicago dailies and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal much about the full-body scanners that seem destined for airports around the world– in hopes that they might prevent another near miss like the Christmas Day attempt by the young Nigerian to blow a hole in the side of the Amsterdam to Detroit airplane.

I read about the ACLU and privacy concerns. I read that the scanners won’t detect dangerous materials in body orifices; or stowed between layers of fat in an obese passengers. I read in an editorial in the Chicago Tribune that the scanners are “similar to MRI machines.” I read in the Chicago Sun-Times that they’re like “low-level X-rays.

“I’ve read nothing about the accumulated radiation risk. Will pregnant women be forced to submit? What about women who aren’t certain that they’re pregnant? What about adolescents whose bodies are still developing, or, worse yet, infants or toddlers.

Surely the day will come when some would-be terrorist decides to hide his chemicals and syringes in a baby’s diaper or PJs.What about people who fly often for business? What about the possibility that human error, messed-up settings could cause the machines to expose passengers to excess levels of radiation.

It happened in one of the country’s best hospitals recently when patients undergoing MRIs were exposed to dangerous, even potentially deadly, levels of radiation. Will we want to trust TSA employers to make certain all settings are correct all or even most of the time?

Before the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Congress revisits this issue–invasion of privacy has been the key concern for the latter–the subject of radiation exposure must be addressed.

Carol Felsenthal: Getting X-Rayed at the Airport: Radiation Risk Anyone?

December 31, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive