http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/5989780/
Passengers virtually stripped naked by 3-D airport scanner
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/5008250/
US airport debuts controversial X-ray scanner
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/3371855/
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Scanner Scam?
Martin,
I think the privacy issues and cost issues are not the most important aspects of the controversy over use of whole body scanners at airports. I think the News media deliberately fail to bring up health issues. Either low level x-rays or RF radiation will be used for scanning to detect substances associated with explosives. Dr. John Gofman, former Professor at University of California at Berkeley and Director of the Biomedical Division when I worked at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the early 1970's has written many papers about overexposure of the public to sometimes unnecessary diagnostic X-rays. Dr. Gofman and his colleagues had many arguments with the US Atomic Energy Commission about whether there was a threshold for biological damage by ionizing radiation. The AEC and its successors (ERDA and DOE) have always contended that there is a threshold value of REM (dose in Roentgen equivalent man) below which there were no significant bioeffects. However, I think that the current view of most scientists is that the dose response curves extrapolate down to zero dose. In other words, there is some biological damage at any radiation level. This is Dr. Gofman's contention and he and his supporters at Livermore paid a price for holding onto that poin of view. His Division was abolished by the AEC and the AEC tried to get him fired by the management at Livermore, but he was a scientist of international reputation, so he was protected as a Professor at Large in the University of California system.
Fast forward to the present and we find that the FCC and its advisory engineering groups believe that there is a threshold for biological damage by RF radiation (including mm waves). The late Dr. Neil Cherry in New Zealand showed that a statistical model of bioeffect dose response is better fit by an assumption of no threshold than by any threshold behavior that he tried to include in his model. Once again, the cognizant government agencies bend to the commercial and economic interests, instead of public health concerns. Now, to try to detectect explosives on passengers, the FAA is about to require airline passengers in the US to submit to whole body X-Ray scans - or as a possible alternative, the use of whole body mm wave scans has also been mentioned. If mm waves or other RF radiation scans were employed, other health problems must be considered. A few years ago, a clinical research group at Graz University in Austria demonstrated that at least 2 % of the population at large is electromagnetically hypersensitive to RF radiation (Bioelectromagnetics 24:387-394 (2003)). Thus, we seem to have the same dilemna as was true a few years ago. How can we protect fragile human beings from enormous vested commercial interests? I personally think that much biophysical research needs to be done before either of these whole body scanning techniques are unleashed on a vulnerable public conditioned to accept any defense available against the horrors of terrorism.
Bill
If you want to hustle a program like the 'whole body scanners' just arrange for a "terrorist" without a passport to board a plane and no one will complain about installing the scanners. I wonder who has the contract to build them.
David
October 2009, Ontario: Polls showed that the majority of people in Ontario where not getting the flu vaccine. So what happens? They give a kid meningitis, he dies, they tell everyone he died from flu complications. A panic ensues and people rush to get vaccinated.
Just like:
December 2009: Airport screening devices have been created. People don't want them. So what happens? Gee --- this is creative --- some guy --- allegedly --- has a bomb --- in his underwear!! Is he stopped? Despite the fact that he does not have luggage or a passport? No, of course not! The farce has to be played out. So canny passengers stop him before he can do damage, but like the panic in Ontario, people freak out and might even re consider the violations of privacy these devices will create. Do you think people would figure it out?
I totally believe this was a set up job. Like the flu nonsense.
- Marilyn -
ARE WE BEING POLLUTED BY ELECTRICITY?
http://unplugthesignal.com/2009/12/29/are-we-being-polluted-by-electricity.aspx?ref=rss
Informant: Martin Weatherall
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Airport scanners cause privacy concerns
Erentals.co.uk (blog)
The scanners work by bombarding the body with electromagnetic waves which then bounce back onto sensors allowing the machine to build up a 3-D picture of ...
http://www.erentals.co.uk/news/airport-scanners-cause-privacy-concerns-181035.html
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How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/6021152/
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=RF+radiation
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=electromagnetic+waves
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=electricity
http://www.buergerwelle.de:8080/helma/twoday/bwnews/search?q=terahertz
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=terahertz
http://www.buergerwelle.de:8080/helma/twoday/bwnews/search?q=scanner
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=biological+damage
http://www.buergerwelle.de:8080/helma/twoday/bwnews/search?q=DNA+damage
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=DNA+damage
http://www.buergerwelle.de:8080/helma/twoday/bwnews/search?q=sensitiv
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=sensitiv
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=John+Gofman
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Neil+Cherry
