: Full Body X-Ray Scanners Are Cancer Threat, Use Airport Detection Dogs

[ensho]

http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/2170


Jacqueline Marcus: Full Body X-Ray Scanners Are Cancer Threat, Use Airport Detection Dogs


Joe Reiss, vice president of marketing for American Science & Engineering Inc., is seeking a contract with Homeland Security to provide X-Ray scanners at airports. If it happens, he'll be doing high-fives and popping champagne bottles with his business associates. Reiss most likely flies in a private jet. He will never be exposed to high-risk radiation from his own X-Ray scanner before boarding the company jet. He has total freedom to come and go as he pleases. This is a company that provides domestic security machines for prisons, military agencies, foreign customs patrols, and other customers but does not have a contract with TSA (Transportation Security Administration) yet. However, Reiss is working on it. After all, this is where, to quote the informer in the film, "State of Play," the "wrath of God money" is: Domestic Homeland Security Contracts are worth an annual $30-40 billion.

Presently, full-body X-Ray scanner machines, which are made by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., are being used for what TSA calls "primary screenings" at six U.S. airports: Albuquerque, N.M.; Las Vegas; Miami; San Francisco; Salt Lake City; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Homeland Security also has announced plans to buy 150 "backscatter" machines, which use low-level X-rays to create a two-dimensional image of the body, from Rapiscan Systems, a unit of OSI Systems Inc. Those machines, which cost $190,000 each, are being deployed in U.S. airports now. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34614797/ns/travel-news/)

Stocks in these companies are hitting the roof. "OSI Systems Inc. gapped open higher Monday morning and is currently up 1.83 at $23.85. OSI Systems Inc. has been gaining ground for the past week and has broken out to a new high in early trade Monday." (RTTNews)

Investors in U.S. corporate media networks have an interest in X-Ray scanners, i.e., stock investments to promote the radiation machines as a "necessity." Will these corporate executives be willing to nuke their brains and genitalia to radiation exposure each time THEY fly? No. They have their own private jets.

-snip-

How plainly can I say this: Radiation exposure is DANGEROUS! It can cause cancer. Why do supervisors, doctors, dentists at hospitals wear those thick, heavy protective aprons and gear when simply being near or around radiation machines? Exposure is a risk to one's health.

As for the corporatists that own all of the uranium mines, they're desperately trying to put their wares on sale in any way possible. Consider Iraq's exposure to cancer-causing radio active "depleted uranium." These uranium corporatists are losing the nuclear power for energy debate -- so now they have to find new business avenues to sell and profit from the uranium; it explains why they're anxious to start X-Raying the sheep at airports.

-snip-

Exposing us like cattle to radiation is much more than a constitutional violation of invading one's personal body, it's a HEALTH RISK to be nuked, to be radiated. You can be sure that the CEOs at the defense-security corporations at L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., OSI Systems Inc., or at American Science & Engineering Inc., companies that probably all lead to one road, will never have to step foot in one of their own X-Ray machines -- as they fly off in their luxury, private jets -- popping champagne.
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[Faryn Balyncd]

1. How many THOUSAND deaths from cancer will we create for every underpants bomb attempt we stop?

[stray cat]

2. I still get dental x-rays and live in brick buildings - we all get exposed to radiation

just breathing and living. The real question here is what are the exposure levels based on energy of particle emission, penetration capacity of any, time of exposure and distance from source

[global1]

3. Big Money To Be Made - Not Only For The Scanners......

Think about it. Radiation exposure. More cancer. More medical treatment. More drugs sold. More medical supplies being sold. More Dr. visits. More hospitalizations. More deaths. More funerals. More caskets sold. And so on.

Any wonder why the government doesn't want to foot the health care bill for all Americans. Could get real expensive. So let the people pay for it. Tax them for their own deaths.

And in the end there is a thinning of the herd. Sort of a culling. All in the name of our safety.

I guess I've gotten very cynical in my old age.

[Trillo]

14. +1

I don't believe you're being cynical. I'd rewrite your sentence thus: "I guess I've gotten very cynical realistic in my old age."

[grilled onions]

4. The well seasoned traveler

may be most at risk. While medical testing often puts a limit on how often they can give you an x-ray they will not be able to bend the rules for those flying the not so friendly skies. The private jet club will not be at risk but once again those who cannot afford such a luxury will be getting zapped far too often.

[mn9driver]

5. CRT computer monitors and cell phones are radiation hazards, too.

Backscatter exposes you to about the same radiation as an old cathode ray tube monitor or color TV set. Millimeter wave is less intense than holding a cell phone up to your ear. Just sayin'.

[progressoid]

8. Shhhh.

You're killing the righteous indignation.

[Tesha]

23. Next thing you know you'll be mentioning how much more radiation people are exposed to...

...while flying at high altitudes (as compared to the amount
produced by the backscatter scanners)!

'Way to harsh their buzz, man! What a kill-rant you are! ;)

Tesha

[targetpractice]

6. 1mm wavelength is not X-ray radiation.

The 1mm wavelength scanners in question produce radiation that bounces off the skin.

X-rays (picometer wavelengh) penetrate the skin and are much higher energy.

Not all radiation is the same... This quoted article could benefit from some research.

[NutmegYankee]

7. Not the same radiation. Medical X-rays pentrate the body, these scanners do not.

The millimeter waves bounce off the skin, so you don't get that ionizing radiation that damages DNA.

I hate these machines because of the privacy concern (digital rape) and not because they are a health risk.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. +1

On both counts.

[SidDithers]

9. The exposure of the scan is orders of magnituede less...

than the exposure you get from taking the flight.

Sid

[pnwmom]

10. If you're worried, ask for a pat-down search. That's an option, you know. n/t

[immoderate]

11. From uranium to X-rays? That's quite a leap.

I'm not in favor of body scans. But this article is really manic. These machines don't use X-rays. And I don't think the uranium industry is behind this rush to body scanning.

--imm

[undeterred]

12. Dogs are such an obvious, low tech way to screen.

And they like sniffing crotches anyway. Dogs can readily be trained to sniff out drugs, why not explosives?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. Dogs cause rabies and are dangerous.

I'd much rather airport security use a team of bomb-seering psychics, which bombard the body with healthy Q-rays.

[juno jones]

18. Dogs take bribes.

[HelenWheels]

15. Define "primary screenings"

Congress passed a Republican sponsored law against using these xray machines for routine screenings at airports. Are primary screenings considered routine?

[Robb]

16. Bad science in this article.

Peppered with class warfare language, to boot.

Plenty of reasons to be concerned about the scans, this is not among them.

[Sebastian Doyle]

17. Bottom line: If Michael "of the Devil" Chertoff is connected with something

then I want absolutely NOTHING to do with it.

Let alone the cancer risks and the pure goddamned ridiculous embarassment, and fascism of the whole idea.

[ikri]

20. A couple of FAR better reasons to be wary of these scanners

- They do not work anywhere nearly fast enough - it takes over 10 seconds per person, per scan, to be used at airports without creating massive, vulnerable, queues or crowds of passengers. A Boeing 777 can carry over 300 people, even if the passengers move at a perfect rate through the scanners that's going to mean a potential 50 minute queue of people waiting to go through. That's just to board a single plane, a busy international airport will need a number of these scanners, that's going to mean hundreds or potentially thousands of people queuing, that sounds like a very tempting target for terrorism - a bomber wouldn't need to worry about boarding the plane, there are more victims in the queue.

- They're quite possibly illegal in a number of countries (almost certainly illegal in the UK) thanks to aggressive and inflexible child pornography laws. The technology can create an image of an unclothed body, that can be enough to meet the definition of child porn! Anyone found to be viewing the images could be subject to arrest and I can absolutely guarantee that someone will take a picture using their phone of an image generated by the scanners, there's no way to say whether it will be an image of a child, celebrity or just a random passenger, but it will happen.

Even these reasons ignore the elephant in the room - these scanners simply aren't required! Simple vigilance would appear to work just as well.

[dysfunctional press]

21. you get much more radiation by takinhg the flight itself.

healthwise- you'd be better off to get the screening and skip the flight.

"Will these corporate executives be willing to nuke their brains and genitalia to radiation exposure each time THEY fly? No. They have their own private jets."

most executives don't routinely fly on corporate jets.

"As for the corporatists that own all of the uranium mines, they're desperately trying to put their wares on sale in any way possible. Consider Iraq's exposure to cancer-causing radio active "depleted uranium." These uranium corporatists are losing the nuclear power for energy debate -- so now they have to find new business avenues to sell and profit from the uranium; it explains why they're anxious to start X-Raying the sheep at airports."

depleted uranium isn't 'mined'- it's a by-product of the enrichment process, as well as spent nuclear fuel.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

22. Not true. Bad science.