


More evidence indicates that body scanners aren't such a great idea














Comments     Threshold


RE: Another layer of harassment
By Solandri on 1/12/2010 1:44:06 PM , Rating: 2
Your DNA gets damaged all the time. The earth is constantly bombarded by cosmic radiation which can damage it. Stepping into sunlight increases the rate at which it's damaged. Being at high altitude for the few hours of the flight increases the rate at which it's damaged.

Your body has built-in systems to repair or withstand most of that damage. People who don't, as mentioned in the article, are destined to die early anyway. I don't mind putting a number on the increased risk so people can make a fair assessment of the dangers. But bandying the fact about as if there were no other causes of DNA damage is dishonest at best, blatant manipulation of public perception at worst. The radiation exposure from the scan is much less than a chest x-ray, which pretty much the entire medical community has concluded is an acceptable level of risk.

As you've surmised, the scanners work because the t-waves don't penetrate the body much. As the image is formed from waves which are scattered back (pretty much like visual wavelengths, except these waves are big enough not to see clothing), they represent little more risk than being bathed in sunlight. IMHO the privacy issue is far more important.

RE: Another layer of harassment
By MrBlastman on 1/12/2010 2:24:17 PM , Rating: 2
Well sure, lots of things damage our DNA. In our world of tests and scans, the medical community is relying on them more and more every day. The average levels of common radiation exposure to the individual is increasing every year. Granted, despite this fact cancer rates _have_ grown since 1975 but in recent years, are in remission (well, not adjusted for the discrepancy between males and females. It is in fact the males that are bringing this figure down, while females have leveled off at an elevated level).


Due to this simple revelation, we can see a 12% increase in prevalence from 1975 to 2006. 12% is not a large number but it is an increase.

Look, something is going to get you eventually, be it heart disease, cancer, a bus, darwin, etc. Cancer is probably the last on anyone's list as a way to go. From all the people I have seen pass on, Cancer is the most insidious of ways to go.

I'm not trying to harp the alarms but simply trying to say that if these screenings add further to the pool of potential genetic mutigens, why not instead try and find a less-harmful way to screen the individuals who pass through these detectors. While I might not fly multiple times a day, there are others who _do_ fly frequently, some on a daily basis, who, with time would sustain a very elevated level of exposure to these processes.

RE: Another layer of harassment
By omnicronx on 1/12/2010 2:46:58 PM , Rating: 2
That's just incidents though in general, cancer related deaths have actually gone down since 1975. (not going to link that, its on the page you linked.)

Isn't it also feasible that advancements in technology has increased both of these numbers? In 1975 there were many cancers we didn't even know about.. (making it kind of hard to diagnose as such)

RE: Another layer of harassment
By MrBlastman on 1/12/2010 2:59:29 PM , Rating: 2
I chose incidents for a reason. While deaths have gone down (yes, I saw that), the sheer suggestion that an individual would have to go through cancer treatment is horrifying enough. Have you yourself or someone you know ever gone through treatment for cancer?

It isn't that fun at all. People might be able to survive cancer better than ever these days but why even accelerate their chances of having to fight it in the first place?

True, we might be able to better diagnose cancer now than we could before (in the 60's and 70's it was a very invasive procedure known as biopsy and "exploratory surgery"), I think these figures do hold some weight coming from the National Cancer Institute.

RE: Another layer of harassment
By tmouse on 1/13/2010 8:26:51 AM , Rating: 2
I've spent the vast majority of my career working in cancer research and I can tell you the vast majority of the increase in cancer rates can and is accounted for by the significant increase in early detection. This also is the leading factor in the increase in survival. Our treatments have not really advanced that much. Again I want to point out that the best evidence on the "damage" is not in fact damage at all, rather it can brake some of the weak hydrogen bonds that lead to an change in the DNA conformation into a form that could be damaged. We constantly have our DNA moving in and out of these conformations and its seems the amounts are probably insignificant compared to the background amounts that naturally occur. This is not ionizing radiation, it doesn't break phosphodiester bonds or cause free radicals. For this to cause a biologically relevant event you need the small regions this temporarily changes to be effected (at that exact time) by a base altering event (mutation, even then there is a 50% chance of normal repair using the opposite strand) or a double break in the phosphodiester backbone leading to a deletion or a duplication. Now this also has to happen in an area of the DNA that is either coding or regulatory and that region needs to be functional in that particular cell. Now, add in escaping imunosurveillance and avoiding the triggering of an apoptotic cascade and I hope you get the idea. There are probably thousands of cells in your body every day that could be cancerous and never survive.

