What are the real radiation dangers from airport scanners? KC Craichy shares what you need to know about radiation sources to protect yourself and your family.
Audio Transcription:
Welcome to LivingFuelTV. I’m KC Craichy, on location at Tampa International Airport.
So, you resumed your travel schedule, it’s the new year, and you’re going through security and they point to you and they say “ma’am or sir, please step into this x-ray machine and let us check you out.” So, your choice now is “am I going to get radiated by this machine or am I going to suffer the humiliation of the enhanced pat-down?” We’re here today to try to give you a little clarity on the issue.
No matter where you are, you’re experiencing background radiation. It happens all the time, 24/7. So when you compare the new x-ray machines with background radiation, you’re talking somewhere between 15 and 45 minutes worth of background radiation worth of radiation. So now you know watching our shows, that we are not fans of excess radiation. There really is no safe dose of radiation, but by most comparisons it is a pretty trivial dose. If you want to compare it to, say, airline travel, it’s between 2 and 4 minutes of additional travel on an airliner worth of radiation. If you compare it to medical radiation, it’s 1/200,000th as much as one single CT scan. So, this is really a trivial dose.
You have to make your own decision on whether you want pictures of you X-rayed or you want to do the pat down. But hopefully this was helpful to you. God bless you, and have a great day.
