The next time I hear someone (and pilots, that includes you) whine about the increased risk of cancer from backscatter machines, I am going to FLIP MY FUCKING SHIT
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Do you have a radiation detecting badge or something that you could wear through the machine to see whether the numbers they give are accurate? Or do such badges only measure much bigger doses?
The dose from flying is altitude and latitude dependent, but the typical number is 0.3-0.5 mrem/hr.
A dental x-ray is 20 hours of flying. The permissible dose for a radiation worker is 5000 mrem, or 10,000 hours of flying. The "dose to public" limit for licensed radiation companies is 100 mrem, or 200 hours of flying.
May I link this to some friends of mine via Twitter? I was just discussing that FDA letter with someone, and I think this would provide some good perspective on the matter.
Yeah, the health concern is obviously bullshit (although it does seem to have a swaying power over the right, so I can see why people are using it). The privacy matter is more concerning, although I'm still on the fence about the 'opt-out' movement: on the one hand, I agree with wanting to send a message that the scanners are probably unconstitutional, but on the other hand, if given the choice between a stranger seeing me naked and a stranger feeling me up, I'll take naked any day. People are gross - I really don't want them touching me.
Yeah, I dug up more numbers on this, too. An exposure of 1 rem increases the probability of cancer death by 0.04-0.08%. So if there are two scans per person per year in the US, there ought to be 600,000,000 x 0.00001 x 0.0008 = 4.8 extra cancer deaths per year. Or, you know about 20 times fewer deaths than by lightning.
Yup. It's the invasion of privacy that bothers me *way* more than the radiation (although I'd be happy to avoid even small doses of the radiation, if possible).
In May, when we were flying to DC with my parents for a family reunion, I opted out of the full body scanner (mostly because I was still in the first trimester of pregnancy and was (possibly irrationally) totally freaked out about the radiation aspect) so I got the (old-style) pat down. During which, the TSA employee patting me down said rather loudly "Oh, congrats!! When is your baby due?" because she could feel that I was pregnant. Which was kind of awkward because basically everyone heard (it was early in the morning and not crowded). What if I hadn't told my parents yet?! That would have been an awful way for them to find out (and I was still in the first trimester, so it would have been totally reasonable to have not said anything to anyone yet). Anyway, I guess I'm just glad that most of our family is fairly easily reachable by car and train.
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The dose from flying is altitude and latitude dependent, but the typical number is 0.3-0.5 mrem/hr.
A dental x-ray is 20 hours of flying. The permissible dose for a radiation worker is 5000 mrem, or 10,000 hours of flying. The "dose to public" limit for licensed radiation companies is 100 mrem, or 200 hours of flying.
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In May, when we were flying to DC with my parents for a family reunion, I opted out of the full body scanner (mostly because I was still in the first trimester of pregnancy and was (possibly irrationally) totally freaked out about the radiation aspect) so I got the (old-style) pat down. During which, the TSA employee patting me down said rather loudly "Oh, congrats!! When is your baby due?" because she could feel that I was pregnant. Which was kind of awkward because basically everyone heard (it was early in the morning and not crowded). What if I hadn't told my parents yet?! That would have been an awful way for them to find out (and I was still in the first trimester, so it would have been totally reasonable to have not said anything to anyone yet). Anyway, I guess I'm just glad that most of our family is fairly easily reachable by car and train.
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