[ RadSafe ] " 'Naked' scanners may pose danger: scientists "

Sat Nov 13 12:54:14 CST 2010

I recall having had the pleasure of meeting Dr. David J. Rose (1922-1985) before his death at a dinner meeting of the New England Chapter of the HPS. I fondly remember the conversation we had over dinner at that meeting.  Dr. Rose was a renowned professor of nuclear engineering 
at MIT. He was hugely respected for his work in fusion
 technology, energy, nuclear waste disposal, and his concern with 
ethical problems arising from advances in science and technology. H
He wrote a wonderful short article in MIT's Technology Review magazine in the 1970's  I recall titled something like: "Is Nuclear Energy Dangerous -- COMPARED TO WHAT?" [emphasis added] which comes to mind regarding the "debate" over airport scanners currently in the news. The preceding  article by Dr. Rose discussed people's fears of nuclear energy due to radiation exposre, and pointed out that the issue that needs prime consideration in any discussion of some technology being used is the question he poses in the title of his paper: "Unsafe, compared to what?" 

The focus on  theoretical cancer risk from the scanners is without doubt dwarfed by the risk of the loss of many hundreds of lives that would be lost in the here-and-now if but one jet load of passengers was lost to a terrorist bomb. 

There is no doubt that terrorists are trying to blow up commercial jets. There is however a substantial doubt if
 low-energy, very low dose x-ray exposure cause skin cancer  --except by liberal use of the LNT hypothesis.

What can you say? It's been better stated before concerning the way various interests are exploiting
 the scanner issue for one purpose or another:

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.Lily Tomlin
US actress & comedienne  (1939 -  )====================================
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.Albert Einstein
US (German-born) physicist  (1879 - 1955)===================================How do you avoid becoming terminally cynical? 

More importantly, does anyone have a copy of Dr. David Rose's 1970's article [think it was around 1974]  from MIT's Technology Review titled something like: "Is Nuclear Energy Dangerous? -- Compared to What?". I would greatly appreciate getting a copy of this short paper for my current files and it would be worth posting a link, if available, for people's use.

Thanks,

Stewart Farber

Farber Medical Solutions, LLC

[203] 441-8433

website: http://www.farber-medical.com

=============================

--- On Sat, 11/13/10, Jaro Franta <jaro-10kbq at sympatico.ca> wrote:

From: Jaro Franta <jaro-10kbq at sympatico.ca>
Subject: [ RadSafe ] " 'Naked' scanners may pose danger: scientists "
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Date: Saturday, November 13, 2010, 8:00 AM

Apologies if someone as already posted this....

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Naked+scanners+pose+danger+scienti
sts/3823426/story.html 
'Naked' scanners may pose danger: scientists
  AFP November 13, 2010 6:18 AM   U.S. scientists warned yesterday
 that
full-body,
 graphic-image X-ray
 scanners
 that are being
 used to screen
passengers
 and airline crews at airports around the United States may be
unsafe. 

"They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get
skin cancer from these X-rays," said Dr. Michael Love, who runs an X-ray
laboratory at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at
Johns Hopkins University School of medicine. 

"No exposure to X-ray is considered beneficial. We know X-rays are hazardous
but we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly
that they will risk their lives in this manner," he said. 

The possible health dangers posed by the scanners add to passengers' and
airline crews' concerns about the devices, which have been dubbed "naked"
scanners because of the graphic image they give of a person's body,
genitalia and all. 

A regional airline pilot last month refused to go through one of the
scanners, calling it an "assault on my person" and a
 violation of his right
to privacy. 

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began rolling out full-body
scanners at U.S. airports in 2007, but stepped up deployment of the devices
this year when stimulus funding made it possible to buy another 450 of the
advanced imaging technology scanners. 

A group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
raised concerns about the "potential serious health risks" from the scanners
in a letter sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology in
April. 

Biochemist John Sedat and his colleagues said in the letter that most of the
energy from the scanners is delivered to the skin and underlying tissue. 

"While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume
of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high," they
wrote. 

The Office of Science and Technology responded this week to
 the scientists'
letter, saying the scanners have been "tested extensively" by U.S.
government agencies and were found to meet safety standards. 

But Sedat told reporters yesterday that the official response was "deeply
flawed." 

"We still don't know the beam intensity or other details of their classified
system," he said, adding that UCSF scientists were preparing a rebuttal to
the White House statement.

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