3 ms·

The risk probability is small for an individual trip. That doesn't mean we get to avoid looking at the collective risk numbers for scanners. In 2011, there were

The risk probability is small for an individual trip. That doesn't mean we get to avoid looking at the collective risk numbers for scanners. In 2011, there were 640 million domestic air passengers in the US. If as a policy we're going to perform 640 million scans, what level of harm should be considered safe? If we take for example, win-the-lottery type odds of one-in-a-million, that's pretty small individually. Now perform the independent random draw 640 million times per year - that would be 640 cases of premature deaths per year give or take a little variation. If no scans are performed that outcome of additional deaths would be zero. Small numbers are not negligible when you repeat the trials millions of times.

pdonis 14y ago
The risk probability is small for an individual trip. That doesn't mean we get to avoid looking at the collective risk numbers for scanners. And exactly the same logic applies to flying in general. If we don't consider the harm due to the scanners to be safe, then we shouldn't consider the harm due to flying itself to be safe, since the latter is several hundred times as large (at least) as the former. Both are being aggregated over exactly the same population of people. And before you say that "I choose to fly, but I don't choose to be scanned", you don't choose what the attendant risks of flying are either. You just have to decide whether or not to fly based on the risks as they are. Basically, with the scanners, when you choose to fly, you are choosing to fly for a couple more minutes than you would in the absence of the scanners. Do you routinely make flight choices based on differences of minutes in flight time? I thought not.