Bismillah, alhamdulillah
When the emperor was desperate and looking for a way of telling who was wise from his courtiers he began to look to experts to solve his situation. As usual there are always ‘experts’ waiting in the wings ready to offer a technology that would expose the faults of others. And so he was literally and figuratively lulled into their spin on technology and soon had embraced the technological marvel of clothing that could only seen by the wise. Of course as charlatans they had stitched nothing but the emperor had convinced himself of their truth and ‘saw’ the invisible air as beautiful clothes and had quickly divested himself of his clothes and was parading around naked in front of all to see. Until a small boy not yet influenced by the pogrom of spin asked the simple but profound question: ‘ Why is the emperor riding his horse stark naked’.
The rapidity with which body scanners are being introduced after the underwear bombing attempt is alarming and raises many questions and concerns with both Muslims and non-Muslims. We are all increasingly travelling by plane in our lives with the dispersal of friends, family and work. Muslims and non-Muslims alike do not want to be blown apart mid-air and both can work together to make this process safer. But neither do we want to be exposed to dangers before even getting on a plane and degraded for a safety that can be achieved through other measures.
Let us turn to safety: First and foremost is the safety of the radiation based body scanners. We are being sold the spin that they can penetrate clothes but as disciplined and intelligent X-rays stop at the human skin border and conveniently bounce back without harming anyone. Like the little boy looking at the nude emperor we should look again at the many pictures that have been put up on the media showing people denuded of their clothes as a result of the scanners. The key place to look is at the chest.
If the scanners took images just from the surface of the skin then the signal bouncing back from the chest wall (under which lie the lungs full of air) would look exactly the same ‘colour’ as the images coming from the abdomen for instance which has less air but a similar size to the chest. Put simply if you took a picture of apeson without clothes the skin over the chest looks the same as the skin over the abodomen. This is cause visible light bounces off the skin to make the image. If the body scanners were doing the same the image of the chest and abdomen would be exactly the same – but they are not.
The images overlying the lung are whiter or show a greater signal from the chest – why?
This technical article written by Dr Leon Kaufman who holds a Phd from the prestigious university UC Berkley reveals the reson why. It is published by a website called DiagnosticImaging.com a website for experts in x-rays, radiologists.
He points out in his article that the scanners currently being touted as non-skin penetrating are indeed skin penetrating! The degree of penetration is upto 5 cm with Rapiscan and 25 cm with AS&E machines. The radation penetrates through the skin and because the lungs have air the air does not absorb as many X-rays as for example the abdomen which has less. This is why we can see the signal difference between the chest where the white image mirrors the outline of the lungs and the abdomen. This is obvious to anyone who looks carefully at the pictures. In fact in the given pictures you can actually make out the lower leg bones! The x-rays are clearly penetrating the skin.
The energy being delivered by AS&E machines is equal to a CT scanner and that of the Rapiscan a mammogram. The potentially harmful energy is being delivered to cells under the skin which if sufficient would increse the risk of cancers. With the total number of air journeys quite high the lifetime risk of skin cancers are likely to go up, let alone the fact that children and pregnant mothers are going to be exposed to this radiation. One of the scary things, is that eye balls are covered by the thinnest skin present on the human body and the degree of radiation penetration into the eyeball is obviously greater than other skin areas.
Would you exchange the increased risk of cancers in general or blindness because of cancer in your eyeball rather than having better intelligence against terror suspects and a more wise approach to reducing the factors that push such people to act in this criminal way?
The current emperors are clearly worse than the emperor in the children’s story. He only removed his clothes, we are being asked to remove ours and in exchange we also being exposed to the risk of body and eyeball cancers!
It is time to say, ‘Enough is enough - no to body scanners’. Join the campaign against these devices on Facebook: read more here and join up here.
Filed under: Society, World Affairs, against body scanners campaign, body scanners facts at radioimaging.com, body scanners the facts, Body scanners x-rays penetrate skin, Dr leon Kaufman exposes body scanner lies, emperor's new clothes - body scanners, eye cancer and body scanners, lung fields allow more x-rays in body scanners, Radiation penetrates skin with body scanners, skin cancers and body scanners
