TSA
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.’” occur in my mind when I reflect upon the mounting din about the Transportation Security Administration’s new plan of radioactive scanning of airport users.
EXCESSIVE DOSES OF RADIATION FROM TSA BODY SCANNERS A GROUNDS FOR APPREHENSION
A group of experts voiced their apprehension to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren. Dr. John W. Sedat, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, in a well-thought-out note was joined by three other similarly credentialed faculty members in expressing their concerns in that letter dated April 6, 2010. In that memo they articulated “concerns about the potential serious health risks” around the “the dose to the skin may be dangerously high” that the TSA is administering at airports across the United States. In that dispatch they pointed out that radiation enhances cancer risks by damaging the DNA and several components inside the cells.
WHAT THE RADIATION INVADES, NOT THE DOSAGE, MAKES THE DISTINCTION
The scanners the Transportation Safety Administration employs concentrate nearly all of the radiation on the surface of the skin and invade a few millimeters into the skin. The anxiety is that there are some very radiation-sensitive tissues close to the skin such as testes, eyes, and circulating blood.
When this is taken into account, it looks deceptive to assert that the quantity being administered is a thousand times less than a chest X-ray, or, that it is far less than what passengers are exposed to in-flight. It is the quantity of the tissue exposed that matters when the effects of radiation are evaluated.
ARE YOU, OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE, IN ONE OF THESE GROUPS?
New borns, little kids, pregnant women, older people, people with impaired immunity (those with HIV infection, cancer patients, people with immune deficiency diseases, and people with defective DNA repair mechanism are various groups of people that are at a more advanced risks than others. At this time the TSA is not differentiating between these groups based on the risks.
Older people are also in a particular group when it comes to radiation exposure. Their DNA accumulates a sizeable amount of unrepaired harm, to the point that even small doses of radiation can cause the occurrence of skin cancers, as well as melanoma which can have the potential of becoming life threatening. Subjecting their eyes to low doses of radiation is also a concern, since exposure to radiation could enhance their risk of developing cataracts.
WE CANNOT PUT OUR TRUST IN THE AUTHORITIES
Remember when the American College of Radiology reassured us that the CT scans were not dangerous and that the radiation was equal to one chest X-ray. At this time we have learned that the dose that is in a CT scan is equal to 1,000 chest X-rays. Based that experience, it can pretty much be predicted that when the real effects of these full body scanners on health become known, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and the remainder of the “officials” who contend the scanners are harmless will no longer be around.
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