NY Times: For Frequent Fliers, a Radiation Risk in the Skies

"Despite recent concern about whether airline passengers get a potentially dangerous dose of radiation from the new security scanners at the airport checkpoints, the real risk is after you board the plane, according to two new publications."

There are new security scanners being tested right now that, "unlike diagnostic x-rays that doctors send through the body... go through the clothes and bounce back, so the machine can create an image of the traveler under the clothing." There was talk concern about whether or not people would receive too much radiation from the machines. The scanners meet the standard for a “general use” X-ray machine, meaning that a person would have to have 1,000 scans a year before approaching the maximum allowed dose for members of the general public. Later, the amount of radiation people get AFTER getting on the plane was discussed and it definitely shocked me! At airliner altitudes, we actually get radiation from the sun and the stars, which can be hundreds of times higher than on the surface of the earth, where the atmosphere filters out radiation. Well that's definitely something I never would have even thought about before! Another interesting fact: "airline crew members flying long-haul high-altitude routes receive, on average, greater exposures than the typical radiation workers in ground-based industries where radioactive sources or radiation producing machines are used, [and] flying round trip from New York to Tokyo seven times a year would put a passenger or crew member at the limit enforced at industrial sites." Holy Moly! If we're already getting that much radiation from simply flying, is it really necessary for airports to expose us to even MORE radiation when going through security? There has to be other ways to make a scanner without potentially being able to harm us with much use over time. Although most people don't fly very often, there are people who fly A LOT, like business frequent fliers, and what about the pilots of the planes? It seems to me the inventors/designers of these super high-tech should be thinking about the long-term best interest of everyone... yeah they would stop potential terrorists, etc. from getting through security checkpoints, but maybe there are other ways of creating really efficient scanners/security machines.



http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/for-frequent-fliers-a-radiation-risk-in-the-skies/?ref=science