just playing devil’s advocate, here.

The public doesn’t listen to risk ratios if the word “radiation” proceeds it.

And the team of scientists at UCSF whose concerns make up the bulk of this post?

The cited expert in this field is Dr Mahesh at Johns Hopkins. Look up the NPR interviews/etc conducted when scanners first came on the scene. Somehow, the short term memory of the media has forgotten about the real science he cited…. A group of retired dermatologists, X-Ray crystollagraphers, and other tangentially related field non-experts from UCSF would not be able to assess the risks as compared to the int’l independent expert panel they call for that has been convened for 20+ years now: the BIER report.

Finally, did anyone check the ASU physicists math? People hear “professor” and they run with it. Prove to me the calculations, including the estimated deterrence factor of reduced attempts due to the scanners in place, and then we can look at this objectively.

Finally: the irony of all this is that I’m opposed to the escalation of any privacy intrusion. I believe the preventive measures begin with foreign policy and end with rational probabilistic detection… But My point is: if you are going to do this assessment, do it right!

So try laying off the insult sauce, will ya?

Seriously, I don’t think I’m ever going to fly into the U.S. again until this is sorted out. I’m not willing to be sexually assaulted and/or irradiated for the “privilege” of visiting your country.

…Is Cancer the only possible negative effects of the pornoscanners anyway?

Microwaves can cause a number of detrimental health issues, other than cancer, correct?

I still can’t get over this quote:

“While the risk of getting a fatal cancer from the screening is minuscule, it’s about equal to the probability that an airplane will get blown up by a terrorist, he added. “So my view is there is not a case to be made for deploying them to prevent such a low probability event.”

Does he realize that ova are formed in girls while they are 9 weeks old in-utero, and that those eggs will be carried and affected cumulatively from then and through the woman’s life (to menopause)?

How much of an X-ray dose is suitable for a useless, invasive, and ineffective procedure? (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/776795-media)

An X-ray is inherently dangerous no matter what, and adding exposure to X-rays for various, increasingly random purposes is not the act of a free society.

I’m sorry–is he saying that it’s okay to increase everyone’s risk of cancer if it’s only a little increase?

Why is it okay for the TSA to increase it at all?

And BTW, how much radiation are the TSA employees getting?

Does Peter Rez realize that some people commute by plane?

People who commute by plane are at increased risk of dying in a terrorist attack too, so the comparison still makes sense.

All this complaining about new screening and not one suggestion on a better way to do it.

Why do we need a better way to do it? Existing, less invasive screening tactics seem to be working pretty well. The two guys who managed to smuggle explosives on American passenger jets since 9/11 only succeeded in getting beat up by fellow passengers and/or burning their own balls off.

Or how about this. By pure accident, I had a full-sized leatherman in my backpack on a flight a few years back. I flew to my destination and it wasn’t until the return flight that the TSA found the device. My punishment was to loose a fine Leatherman, but they let me board. By your logic, since I had the knife and I had gotten it past security, I would have used it. But I didn’t. Why do you suppose that is? A knife by and of itself is not dangerous. It is the intent of the person carrying the knife that matters. To paraphrase the NRA, weapons don’t hijack airplanes, people do.

How do you define a “deadly weapon”? I know people who have trained extensively in martial arts for years. They are a deadly weapon. So they don’t fly? What about your car keys? Used properly, you can seriously mess people up. How about a ball point pen? Used properly, I can kill a person with it.

My final part of this rant is this. When we were told, so many years ago, that the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots, why do we assume that means somebody else? If you want a free country, a free society, etc. that means you have to accept the risks that come with it. I accept that risk every time I fly. I have faith in myself and my fellow passengers that any terrorist on that flight is not going to succeed in another 9/11-style attack, even if it kills us to do it. Literally.

Radiation dosages can have a cumulative effect that is different than just rolling the dice 3 times instead of 1 time.

Also I remember from my diagnostic imaging classes a lot of calculations involving the irradiation of the entire premises during X-Ray imaging but I forgot the specifics. The fact is that X-Rays bounce off of objects and also scatter in addition to traveling in a straight line . . . these things are pretty much operating all day long and in the middle of an open area, not in a room with thick walls with lead shielding.

multiply the probability with the amount of flights per day and it probably kills a person per day.

It does not matter that the proportion is .000003% to use these scanner, over a year, it still translates into 20 free cancers to the US population in the name of Security (800 million passengers per year).

As for your personal choice of going to Burning Man, more power to you. But that is /your/ personal choice, not *our* personal choice.