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Scientists Question Safety of New Airport Scanners
An anonymous reader sends this quote from a story at NPR about the accelerated deployment of new scanning machines at airports:
"Fifty-two of these state-of-the-art machines are already scanning passengers at 23 US airports. By the end of 2011, there will be 1,000 machines and two out of every three passengers will be asked to step into one of the new machines for a six-second head-to-toe scan before boarding. About half of these machines will be so-called X-ray back-scatter scanners. They use low-energy X-rays to peer beneath passengers' clothing. That has some scientists worried. ... The San Francisco group thinks both the machine's manufacturer, Rapiscan, and government officials have miscalculated the dose that the X-ray scanners deliver to the skin — where nearly all the radiation is concentrated. The stated dose — about .02 microsieverts, a medical unit of radiation — is averaged over the whole body, members of the UCSF group said in interviews. But they maintain that if the dose is calculated as what gets deposited in the skin, the number would be higher, though how much higher is unclear."
didnt these types of scanners get covered a few months ago with negative side effects from a scientific study proclaiming evidence the radiation can unzip DNA?
how about this for airport security: stop blowing up brown people and start working with countries other than china, canada, and mexico to ensure we're better global citizens...
Good people go to bed earlier.
This or full body cavity search Take your pick!
Fail.
A locked cockpit door would just keep the screams of the passengers from reaching the pilots as the aircraft split in two from the bomb. It would do nothing to alleviate the need to search people and luggage getting on aircraft.
Yeah, no.
The thing about Fox is they've become a whipping boy around here, without regard for occasionally checking with reality as a basis.
In my humble opinion, and even though I don't particularly care for that channel, it diminishes us all to blame one media outlet for this behavior when they ALL do it.
If these are the same scientists that discovered "global warming" then I figure these new airport scanners, far from being dangerous, may actually cure all sorts of diseases.