Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron Bennett
Perhaps, but that's not conclusively shown, and much of the technical details of the scanners have not been publicly revealed. The dosage numbers the TSA and others are touting are whole body exposure. More specifically, what is the effect of much of the radiation exposure being concentrated into one's skin - that's still unknown.
With all that said, the scanners, when operating correctly by a highly trained operator, are likely safe. However, what if the scanner malfunctions and/or is operated by an operator who isn't fully aware of the limitations / safety issues of the machine.
In short, in regards to safety, much of the concern with the scanners is the radiation exposure in the event of a malfunction / operator error.
Read up on the Therac-25 saga ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
The key points of the Therac-25 saga are that malfunctions can and do happen, especially in machines predominantly controlled by software, and operator training is an important variable - TSA agents aren't trained medical professionals ... in the view of many, that alone is worrisome in regards to the scanners.
Ron |
Ok, Lets ignore the fact it's COMPLETELY different technology and we're in an alternative universe where it's the same thing and we pretend we haven't improved safety standards on cars, planes, medical devices etc in 30 years.. Let's pretend what happened happens again and someone got 100 times the dose of radiation from the scan they were supposed to.
That's horrible right? HORRIBLE! OMG kill the gubmint!.. It's going to be a national scandal when the error is found out.. Newspapers will run headlines of "Don't fry my junk", lawlsuits will be proposed, right wing talk radio is going to go nuts... The guy that got the 100x dose keeps on walking and then gets in an aluminium tube, climbs out of our protective atmosphere and EXPOSES HIMSELF TO COSMIC RADIATION EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN THAT DOSE VOLUNTARILY.
You're worried about a freak accident, the scandal of which will reverberate through the decades when stepping onto the plane is giving you the EXACT SAME LEVELS of radiation of this freak accident. It's like someone complaining about a beer and how unhealthy it is and then drinking ONE HUNDRED beers because they've fruit juice labels on them.
Anyways, if you're afraid of the equivalent radiation to an hour of just walking around in a park just being alive there is an easy solution, get rid of the backscatter ones and keep the millimetre wave ones. Of course no one will understand the difference and still complain about the 'radation.
I'm in no way agreeing that these measures are a good thing, I just can't believe the people complaining about the supposed radiation BEFORE doing pretty much the most irradiating thing you can do outside of a full body x-ray - get on a plane (oh, and during a solar flare when up to 100 times more cosmic radiation is hitting us....forgeddaboudit).
I'd rather walk through a mm wave scanner than have to take my frigging shoes off.