It's actually plausible that the scanners - if working as designed - might cause net health benefit ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis http://en.

It's actually plausible that the scanners - if working as designed - might cause net health benefit ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis ). The tricky thing is that we have no way of knowing if the machines are operating as designed and the powers that be have a looooong history of outright lying to passengers. I still remember when they told people sending your camera through the X-ray wasn't bad for the film - this was a lie, but it made security's job easier to tell that lie, so they told it. Knowing that the TSA is a bunch of incompetent and untrustworthy nitwits, I don't trust them to operate dangerous equipment safely. Since a machine that's not being maintained correctly or isn't being used correctly could be really dangerous, I generally choose to opt out.