AOL Investigation--"No Proof Body Scanners Are Safe"

Image credit: marktalk.com

Despite the claims of the government that the radiation emitted by the backscatter devices is safe, a revealing investigation into those claims raises many more questions than answers.

Simply put, the government is lying. Big shock.

Kudos to Mr. Schneider for his excellent reporting and investigative journalism!

Investigative article by Andrew Schneider, Senior Public Health Correspondent

From the story:

The problem is that the TSA offers no proof that anyone is checking to see if the machines are "working properly."

The TSA ticks off a litany of groups that it says are involved with determining and ensuring the safety of the controversial devices, including:

* The Food and Drug Administration

* The U.S. Army Public Health Command

* Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

* The Health Physics Society

However, AOL News has found that those organizations say they have no responsibility for the continuing safety of the alternative to TSA's grope.

Further, the Homeland Security agency refuses to release exposure data to top non-TSA safety experts eager to evaluate any risk.

How Radioactive Is It?

The amount of radiation generated by a properly calibrated full-body device in the typical 15-second-long scan is equal to about an hour of normal background radiation, such as the amount absorbed while walking through a park, the TSA says.

But physicians and most radiation health specialists say there is no "safe" dose of radiation, so any planned exposure must be justified.

John Sedat, a professor emeritus in the department of biochemistry at the University of California at San Francisco, and three of his colleagues -- a physician and two other scientists -- attempted to verify TSA claims that the full-body scanners were safe.

They studied all the available information on the new system and tried to determine the wavelength of the X-rays, the intensity of the energy released in the design and the safeguards built into these devices.

"We found that essentially none of this information was known or made public, and more interestingly, it looked like this technology had not been independently vetted by the scientific community, published, peer-reviewed or even discussed openly," Sedat told AOL News.

"Essentially, all the information was coming from companies that were making the devices, and it looked like it was being parroted by the FDA and the TSA, which didn't seem reasonable," he said.

In April, Sedat and his colleagues sent a lengthy letter outlining their safety concerns to the White House science adviser, John Holdren, asking that several specific areas -- especially an impartial review -- be considered. It was November, seven months later, before the White House replied.

Sedat says he and his colleagues have "some heavily redacted reports which basically just raise more [danger] flags, because it's very far from an independent, outside review."

The bottom line is that the the University of California at San Francisco group isn't any closer to assessing whether there are health hazards from the scanners.

Read more here

December 22--Austin, Texas woman handcuffed and manhandled after refusing to submit to government groping. Note that the television station carefully chose commentators that would support TSA and Austin Police actions.

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