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Airplane crews are exposed to more ionizing radiation than the rest of the population because at the high altitudes the planes fly the thinner atmosphere doesn'
by rom16384 14y ago
Airplane crews are exposed to more ionizing radiation than the rest of the population because at the high altitudes the planes fly the thinner atmosphere doesn't protect as well as when at ground level.
- cobrausn 14y agoBackscatter workers are not the airplane crews - the exposure concern is from the machines.
- stcredzero 14y agoYes, and that's part of the data we've been gathering about radiation dosage. The problem, is that is about radiation that mostly deposits its energy evenly throughout your body. The backscatter machines are set up so most of it goes into your skin, which is particularly cancer prone. Note that the formulas that doctors use to calculate cancer risk from dosage are based on the evenly deposited energy data. These numbers would suggest that skin is less cancer prone than other tissues, but this is mostly because most of the energy would be deposited elsewhere. I don't think I'm unreasonable in suggesting that lots of animal testing would need to be done before unleashing such machines on the general public and 10's of thousands of TSA workers. You don't risk public health on "spherical cow" assumptions.