Originally Posted by
pinworm
This is also established fact. It is not unreasonable to conclude then, that there is likely to be measurable differences in damage.
I gave an example in my post where it is in fact very difficult to measure differences in "damage" in terms of cancer death rates.
Originally Posted by
pinworm
A terrorist may or may NOT get you, but it's certain that xrays will with enough exposure.
X ray backscatter whole body imagers involve a radiation dose of less than 0.01 millirem, or 0.1 microSievert, whereas we get about 200 mrem or 2000 microSievert per year from natural background radiation anyway. Thus in 200 scans per year you only add 1% to your radiation exposure, and in fact if you live in Denver versus Miami you already add about 10% to your radiation exposure anyway (due to less atmospheric shielding of cosmic rays).
THz scanners involve no ionizing radiation whatsoever; the individual THz "photons" each carry an energy of about 1/1000 of that needed to affect a chemical bond.
As with all things, the risks associated with radiation depend on quantity. You can't talk about risk without quantity.