Radio Shows | Naked Truth About Scanners | mp3 … wma … wav

Norbert and I both travel quite a bit for the university… so we've seen lots of changes in airports, from new fees to increased security.

The newest addition is whole body X-ray-based scanners, and some groups are adamantly opposed to them.

Two new imaging technologies are being used: millimeter wave and backscatter. Millimeter wave scanners use radio waves which have no proven adverse health effects.

The other, Backscatter, uses extremely low levels of X-rays to detect objects under a person's clothing. It's this technology that some groups argue is harmful to our health.

Backscatter works by mating two scanners – one does the front of the body while another scans the back. They bounce low-radiation X-rays off a passenger to produce photo-quality images, as if they were undressed. But the images are obscured for the operator to protect passengers' privacy.

So, just how much radiation is used?

The government established each screening should not exceed 25 microrems. By comparison, the scanners emit just 1.48 microrems per screening. At that rate, it'd take 17-thousand screenings a year to exceed the 25-thousand microrem limit the government set for any given year.

Experts say a passenger would need about 200-thousand scans to equal one CT scan. That's two flights a day for over 270 years! Opponents argue this comparison to CT scans is misleading, because backscatter doesn't distribute the radiation through the entire volume of the body.

Rather, it's largely deposited into the skin and adjacent tissue, which means the skin is getting a lot of radiation. Future research will undoubtedly settle this argument.

The final question, of course, is whether the imagers are excessively invasive. That depends on the individual.

I'm personally okay with a technician seeing a computer modified image of me in exchange for the possibility of a safer flight.

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