If you did not already have enough reasons to “opt out” of the Transportation “Security” Administration’s blatantly privacy-invading full-body scaners, here is an even better one: they can, and statistically will, cause cancer.
U.S. scientists warned Friday that the full-body, graphic-image X-ray scanners that are being used to screen passengers and airline crews at airports around the country may be unsafe.
They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays, Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine, told AFP.
Sure, eventually everything can kill you, and eventually something will, but no flight is worth walking though an x-ray machine without the appropriate lead overgarment in place… and, while these would be all too amusing, they provide no radiation protection.
Next week may be the last time we go out to visit my parents for a while (the tickets were purchased before this most-recent bout of mindnumbing idiocy), especially given that it would take three days on the train…
(Courtesy of Traction Control.)
Why don’ they just get bomb dogs? They don’t have to be guard dogs, either. Benji makes a fine bomb dog.
The thought of this makes me twitch– of course, I’ve spent time inn front of an x-ray machine with just lead undies on, so…
I am totally not above using cancer as a scare tactic to help get these things eliminated.
@Rustmeister – Honestly, I have no concrete answer, but it probably has something to do with effectiveness rate (about 70-80% for dogs), the number they would need, the number of handlers they would need, allergies of the passengers, and the dogs’ inabilities to catch things like mechanical triggers and the like.
Dunno, though.
@Dixie – Oh, I have done some radiologically interesting things in my time, too, but it was kept at an absolute minimum, and was only done because it was part of my then-paying-job. Doing it just so I can get on a plane? Hell with that.
@bluesun – Especially since the scare tactic is backed up with some actual research on the matter!
Linoge,
That radiation probably wouldn’t do too much damage this one time, BUT
think of the fun you could have with a roll of aluminum duct tape and undies.
Two round smiley faces on the wifes bra, and a ‘Mr(s). Happy’ codpiece down below.
Just remember that all the ,,., writing would have to be cut out of the pasties, so it would show up in …print.
What about a sub-dermal tattoo done in a material that’ll show up on X-rays?
“SUCK IT, TSA” perhaps?
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@Kurt P – Oh, I know, but radiation-induced cancer is both a cumulative effect, and a memoryless function… if you build up enough rads over time, you are probably going to start growing something, and sometimes, just sometimes, your number is up and you are screwed anywise.
Me, I am going to opt out regardless, but I think what you are imagining is what those pasty-thingies I linked to provide.
@Dixie – Pretty sure all tattoos show up on x-rays, but actually not sure on that…