Are Body Scanners Dangerous to Your Health?
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6617.shtml
By John W. Whitehead
Online Journal Guest Writer
Nov 23, 2010, 00:23
As the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) pushes forward with
its plan to place full-body scanners in all American airports, experts
in the scientific community are raising serious concerns that the
full-body scanners are not medically safe for the millions of people
that will be exposed to them each year. Even the Allied Pilots
Association has urged its members to opt out of the body scanning
measures because of the "ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to
their health."
In April 2010, four members of the University of California faculty
relayed to Dr. John P. Holdren, President Obama's Science and Technology
czar, their concerns about the serious health risks posed to travelers
by the whole body back scatter X-ray scanners. Dr. Sedat is a Professor
Emeritus in Biochemistry and Biophysics, with expertise in imaging; Dr.
Marc Sherman is an internationally well known and respected cancer
expert; and Drs. David Agard and Robert Stroud are X-ray
crystallographers and imaging experts. Suffice it to say, these men know
what they're talking about. So when they suggest that an immediate
moratorium is needed on the use of the scanners in order to carry out a
second independent evaluation to determine that the scanners really
/are/ safe, our government, which is supposed to protect us from these
kinds of dangers, should listen.
Specifically, these scientists argue that the concentration of radiation
on the skin of individuals being scanned poses a serious cancer risk
that has been largely dismissed. The TSA has compared the radiation
received from the body scanner to the radiation that is absorbed in
regular airplane travel or the radiation from a chest X-ray. However, in
their memo to Dr. Holdren, Drs. Sedat, Agard, Stroud and Shuman note
that this comparison is "very misleading." The TSA estimates only
consider the radiation as it would be if absorbed by the whole body, as
opposed to how the scanner really operates, which is to concentrate the
radiation on the skin. The scientists claim that the body scanners have
not received a proper medical review using "key data" which would allow
for a proper understanding of the medical impact of the technology which
they believe could cause mutations and skin cancer. They suggest setting
up an independent panel to review the safety concerns posed by the
scanners, a highly reasonable suggestion for a piece of technology that
will be scanning millions of people a year.
Other scientists have also voiced their concerns over the devices, such
as Dr. David Brenner who heads Columbia University's Center for
Radiological Research. He states that radiation produced by the scanners
is /twenty times/ higher than the official estimate. Physics professor
Peter Rez at Arizona State University echoes Dr. Brenner's claims. He
points out that there is a real possibility that a body scanner could
malfunction, concentrating unsafe amounts of radiation on one area of
the body. "The scary thing to me is not what happens in normal
operations, but what happens if the machine fails. Mechanical things
break down, frequently."
On a side note, while it's bad enough that the scanners can see through
your clothing to an alarming degree, they can also reveal quite a bit
about your health history. As Dr. Kristin Byrne, a radiologist at Lenox
Hill Hospital in New York City, points out, "The airport scanners show
anything on the surface of the skin and very closely under the skin."
This includes foreign objects close to the skin, including piercings,
catheters and colostomy bags, as well as breast implants and prosthetic
testicles. These are items that most people want to keep private and
away from the prying eyes of the public and government officials.
Despite all of this, Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of
Homeland Defense insists that the full-body scanners "are safe,
efficient, and protect passenger privacy. They have been independently
evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory, who have all affirmed their safety."
Parroting her, TSA Administrator John Pistole in testimony before a
Senate panel on November 16, 2010, claims that the body scanners struck
a proper balance between privacy and security and that the radiation
exposure was "well within safety standards."
Of course, the FDA, which has been criticized heavily in recent years as
being fundamentally broken and even corrupt, has a very dubious track
record when it comes to ensuring the safety and efficacy of drugs,
biologics and medical devices. Over the years, the FDA has been accused
of causing high drug prices, keeping life-saving drugs off the market,
allowing unsafe drugs on the market because of pressure from
pharmaceutical companies and censoring health information about
nutritional supplements and foods. For example, the FDA recently
admitted to making a mistake in approving a controversial knee implant
against the advice of its scientific reviewers. As the Associated Press
reports, "The announcement comes a year after the agency first
acknowledged that its decision to approve the device was influenced by
outside pressure, including lobbying by four lawmakers from the
company's home state of New Jersey."
The question is: if the scanners are potentially dangerous, then why has
the government been in such an all-fire rush to implement them?
First, we have to recognize that we are ruled by an elite class of
individuals who are completely out of touch with the travails of the
average American. The government officials who have foisted these
scanners on us -- President Obama, whose stimulus funds are paying for
the scanners; members of Congress, who have pushed for the technology to
be implemented in the airports; and Janet Napolitano and John Pistole,
who have been adamant about subjecting the American people to all manner
of indignities and rights violations for the sake of security -- don't
have to go through the scanners (they have the luxury of flying on
private or government planes and having security clearances that allow
them to breeze past such barriers), so there's no risk to them medically.
Second, we are -- and have been for some time -- the unwitting victims
of a system so corrupt that those who stand up for the rule of law and
aspire to transparency in government are in the minority. This
corruption is so vast it spans all branches of government -- from the
power-hungry agencies under the executive branch and the corporate
puppets within the legislative branch to a judiciary that is, more often
that not, elitist and biased towards government entities and
corporations. The scanners are a perfect example of this collusion
between corporate lobbyists and government officials.
Third, we are relatively expendable in the eyes of government --
faceless numbers of individuals who serve one purpose, which is to keep
the government machine running through our labor and our tax dollars.
Those in power aren't losing any sleep over the indignities we are being
made to suffer or the possible risks to our health. All they care about
are power and control.
"We the people" have not done the best job of holding our
representatives accountable or standing up for our rights. But there
must be a limit to our temerity. Clearly, there are enough concerns
about the health risks posed by these scanners to justify placing a
moratorium on their use in airports. Something as potentially dangerous
as these scanners certainly shouldn't be forced on the American public
without the absolute assurance that it will not harm our health or
undermine our liberties. At a minimum, Congress should establish an
independent commission -- one not comprised of individuals connected to
corporations that stand to profit from the scanners -- to fully examine
these concerns and report back to the American people. And DHS and TSA
need to go back to the drawing board and find a better way to protect
national security without sacrificing our health and our freedoms.
/About John W. Whitehead: Constitutional attorney and author John W.
Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new
book The Freedom Wars (TRI Press) is available online at www.amazon.com.
Whitehead can be contacted at //[email protected]/
<mailto:[email protected]>/. Information about The Rutherford
Institute is available at //www.rutherford.org/
<http://www.rutherford.org/>/. /
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