

U.S. Gov't Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners - danso
http://www.propublica.org/article/u.s.-government-glossed-over-cancer-concerns-as-it-rolled-out-airport-x-ray

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salem
This: <http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf> Plus this:
"Having both technologies is important to create competition"

I know I'm opting out.

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loqi
Potential silver lining: [http://blog.sethroberts.net/2011/02/25/the-
baltimore-shipyar...](http://blog.sethroberts.net/2011/02/25/the-baltimore-
shipyard-study/)

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salem
Not the same type of radiation

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dbrown26
At the Atlanta airport, they have a repeating video with a slide that says
that insists these machines are "perfectly safe".

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GiraffeNecktie
Out of hundred million people somewhere between 6 and 100 might develop
cancer? I guess we worry about the risk for the same reason we keep buying
lottery tickets (while eating french fries cooked in hydrogenated oils)

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glenra
The claim made is that between 6 and 100 might develop cancer _if the machines
are working as designed_. However, we have no reason to believe the machines
are calibrated correctly or working correctly. The TSA workers aren't wearing
radiation detectors nor are the people going through the machines nor is there
any independent outside party systematically or randomly checking the
machines. So if one machine malfunctioned such that it was generating too much
radiation (which according to the article we have reason to believe happens
sometimes) it might conceivably give cancer to thousands or tens of thousands
of people before anybody noticed.

Hey, remember when the security folk used to tell you that x-ray screening
didn't damage film? That was an outright lie, but they said it anyway because
it was convenient. So I get that the manufacturer _claims_ the number who'd
get cancer today is from 6-100; what I don't get is why you'd choose to
_believe_ that claim.

