Re: X-Ray Vision Is Here

[rkathren@tricity.wsu.edu (Ron L. Kathren)]

Thank you, Roy, for passing along this most interesting information.
However, I do not believe the principal of ALARA optimization is limited
only to medical benefit to the exposed person.  Otherwise, no occupational
exposure would be permissible.  One could also make a strong argument that
the voluntarily accepted risk from exposure to an individual can be
justified by the offsetting greater benefit to a group. 

However, thanks again for forwarding this provocative item.


Ron Kathren, CHP

 >The following article appeared in my morning newspaper, The Advocate,
>Tuesday, April 8, 1997:
> 
>                   Detectors can see through clothing
> 
>     Raleigh, N.C.  - The  next generation  of weapons detectors is
>     deadly accurate,  able to  look through  clothes to find guns,
>     explosives and even syringes and drug vials that can be tucked
>     into rolls of fat.
>          About the  size of a voting booth, a machine manufactured
>     by Nicolet  Imaging Systems  of San  Diego is  being tested at
>     North Carolina's  Central Prison and the federal courthouse in
>     Los Angeles.
>          "It is  a very low-level X-ray," Capt. Marshall Hudson, a
>     correction  officer   said  during   a  demonstration  Monday.
>     Hudson, said  the $100,000  machine is capable of showing shin
>     bones near  the skin  and even a person's private parts on the
>     "uncloak mode."
>          While police groups are intrigued, civil libertarians are
>     concerned because  the same  technology is  being developed by
>     other manufacturers  into a hand-held model, which will enable
>     police to  detect a  weapon hidden under someone's clothing up
>     to 60 feet away.
> 
>I checked  the web  site for  Nicolet Imaging  Systems and  they have  a
>SECURE 1000 Personnel Security Screening System and state:
> 
>     Each full  body scan of the SECURE 1000 produces approximately
>     3 microREMs  of emission.  This is  equivalent to the exposure
>     every  person   receives  each  five  minutes  from  naturally
>     occurring background environmental radioactivity.
> 
>This  obviously   raises  some  moral,  ethical,  radiation  safety  and
>regulatory control  issues.   Among those  a departure of the prevailing
>philosophy  of   no  purposeful   ionizing  radiation  exposures  to  an
>individual unless  there  is  an  appropriate  medical  benefit  to  the
>individual.
> 
>This should be an interesting discussion.
> 
>Roy A. Parker, Ph.D.
>E-Mail: 70472.711@compuserve.com
>Tel: 504-924-1473
>Fax: 504-924-4269
> 
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