4 ms·
See this letter by UCSF biophysicists & oncologists written to the Whitehouse with concern for these scanners.[1] Their point is that the 'overall' dose is, no
by toufka 12y ago
See this letter by UCSF biophysicists & oncologists written to the Whitehouse with concern for these scanners.[1]
Their point is that the 'overall' dose is, not only unknown, but measured in a non-meaningful way. "Garbage-in, Garbage out." A full body scan produces 10 microrem of emission, concentrated to the first few microns of skin - (which happen to be where gonads, breast tissue, skin & eyes are...). This is very much unlike riding in an airplane where the exposure is truly whole-body. The "expose per cell" in these two cases is wildly different.
[1] http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf
- Houshalter 12y agoDoes this actually matter? If each cell has x% probability of becoming cancerous when hit with a single ray of radiation, then shouldn't the probability of getting cancer is the same either way?
- toufka 12y agoThe answer is mostly, we don't know. However, we do know that most of your cells in your body are not really capable of becoming cancerous. In general (again, generalities here - we don't have enough data), only dividing tissue is really capable of becoming cancerous. But most of these dividing tissues are those mentioned above and likely to be some of the cells exposed to such a machine (immune system (not near the surface), skin, testes, breast tissue, digestive system). The tissues at the surface of your body are disproportionately susceptible to cancer. Cancer very much is a stochastic event, and so probabilities are all we can talk about. But reducing the number of encountered objects by billions-fold while keeping the rate of exposure the same can wildly skew data that you had relied upon to determine a 'safe' dose.