During the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearings, Senator Claire McCaskill did refer to the 'love pats' that she had been continually submitted to which, she supposes, are due to orthopedic metal body parts. However, we did note that Representative John Boehner recently skipped the identification-checking agents, the metal detectors and the body scanners on a visit to the Ronald Reagan Airport. Perhaps he has no metal parts.
We have noticed that jokes are being made about older women noting that since their sex lives are fading, they may go to the end of the line to receive their 'thrill' once more.
Have you had similar pat-down experiences when traveling perhaps because your appearance — older, white-haired, perhaps even using a cane — could contribute to being used to demonstrate impartiality in screening?
*Part of a letter of concern follows below sent to Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, regarding the use of the backscatter X-ray, dated last April 2010:
Letter of Concern
We are writing to call your attention to serious concerns about the potential health risks of the recently adopted whole body backscatter X-ray airport security scanners. This is an urgent situation as these X-ray scanners are rapidly being implemented as a primary screening step for all air travel passengers.
Our overriding concern is the extent to which the safety of this scanning device has been adequately demonstrated. This can only be determined by a meeting of an impartial panel of experts that would include medical physicists and radiation biologists at which all of the available relevant data is reviewed.
An important consideration is that a large fraction of the population will be subject to the new X-ray scanners and be at potential risk, as discussed below. This raises a number of ‘red flags’. Can we have an urgent second independent evaluation?
The Red Flags
The physics of these X-rays is very telling: the X-rays are Compton-Scattering off outer molecule bonding electrons and thus inelastic (likely breaking bonds).
Unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies (28keV). The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high.
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