Originally Posted by Doppy
I'm totally against the use of backscatter machines. Aside from the fact that I don't think security personnel should be seeing me naked, I'm against being shot with radiation by the government.
Sure, everyone says it's "just a small amount" but that's bunk. We go through security pretty often around here, and all of those little "doses" of radiation add up.
Our reproductive organs are pretty sensitive to radiation. Men's testicles don't have any protection from it. How many times can you get shot with radiation before your sperm is all messed up?
And if we were going to use these machines consistently, we'd have to use them on children, as well. Do you want to subject your child, in his/her developmental stages, to dozens of "safe" doses of radiation? I wouldn't.
We have no idea what kind of effects this type of large scale radiation dosing would have on the public. We're not talking about a half dozen people who work in a top-secret government lab, we're talking about tens of millions of people getting hundreds of millions of doses each year.
We understand the concern, screeners work near these machines all day and are exposed to the radiation more than the passengers. I would want to see that levels are safe and there is no accumulative effects from the machines.
As a point of reference the the present X-Ray machines are tested on an annual basis and must be put out of service if even the curtain is damaged. The entrance and exits are covered by two sets of lead lined rubber covered curtains which prevent any exposure. By the way the amount of radiation produced by the X-Ray machines is 50 times smaller than one chest X-Ray and is contained within the chamber.