Buck Naked

We live in a world where whenever you catch a plane you will all be seen, wherever you travel from and to, by total strangers, totally naked, as will your wife, your daughters, your Mother, your Grandmother and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. Just so that certain people can make a buck. Not too long ago a man, allegedly, and I say allegedly, because we have no real proof that he was the terrible threat he was made out to be, other than an hysterical news media, tried to set fire to his underpants on a flight to America and was viewed as the tip of the iceberg to the alarmists of this world convinced that the very fabric of our air travel security was at stake because a lone loony blew up his own underpants. The relatively minor event, not since repeated, prompted the introduction of, on the global scale, devices known as Back Scatter scanners. These scary devices will literally, take nude pictures of your body, down to the smallest detail including your genitals and any implants that you may have had.

Not content with embarrassing us in the name of security, so powerful are these machines, they also want to bombard us with potentially lethal levels of radiation. The company that makes the machine and the authorities that buy them are quick to assure us that these powerful radiation emitting devices are perfectly safe, even for frequent fliers, and that the mild embarrassment it may cause is offset by the fact that you don’t have to remove jackets, belts and shoes whilst going through the departure lounge at your local airport.

There is a great deal of controversy over what constitutes a safe level of radiation given that when one has an hospital X-ray the technicians are well shielded from its effects. This new device for use in airports uses much more power and, as such, much more radiation to literally take a nude photo of your body with no safeguard to the recipient, whatsoever. Nevertheless, don’t worry the operators are well protected and the scanners represent no danger to them at all.

Not only is the introduction of such devices an invasion of your privacy, it is an invasion of your private parts and on top of that could well affect your ability to reproduce. So from now on in, when you take your annual holiday you will not only be made to suffer great embarrassment you will also be irradiated and run the risk of becoming infertile. If you think that’s an over reaction, think again.

A leading U.S. expert on the biological effects of X-radiation is Dr. John Gofman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley claims, following exhaustive research, that there is NO SAFE DOSE-LEVEL of ionizing radiation. According to Dr Gofman, ionizing radiation in the X-ray spectrum damages and mutates both chromosomal DNA and structural proteins in human cells. He goes on to point out that if this damage is not repaired, it can lead to cancer.

New research into the subject shows that even very low doses of X-ray can delay or prevent cellular repair of damaged DNA, raising questions about the safety of routine medical X-rays. One of the most worrying aspects of his findings is that unborn babies can become grotesquely disfigured if their mothers are irradiated during pregnancy.

The fact is that, contrary to what the authorities are telling us, as to the safety of the back scatter devices, radiation damage is cumulative and each successive dose builds upon the cellular mutation caused by the last and can take years for the radiation damage to manifest itself as a full blown cancer but, in some cases, can be much sooner. The biggest danger is with pregnant women, who may not be aware they are pregnant at the time they are being scanned and of course, flight crews around the world who will acquire far more levels of dangerous radioactive dosage than all other sectors of the global community, given the frequent scanning they will endure.

Dr Gofman goes on to explain that X-ray doses are seldom measured which, as a consequence, reflects the false assumption that doses do not matter. The fact is they do matter given that each bit of additional dose of any X-ray photon may be the one that sets in motion the high-speed, high energy electron that will cause a carcinogenic or atherogenic [smooth muscle] mutation. Such mutations rarely disappear. The higher their accumulated number in a population, the higher will be the population's mortality rates from radiation-induced cancer and ischemic heart disease.

It’s not just Dr. Gofman saying this, a report in the British medical journal The Lancet noted that after breast mammograms were introduced in 1983, the incidence of ductal carcinoma (12 percent of breast cancer) increased by 328 percent, of which 200 percent was due to the use of mammography itself. A Lawrence Berkeley National Lab study has demonstrated that breast tissue is extremely susceptible to radiation-induced cancer, confirming warnings by numerous experts that mammograms can initiate the very cancers they may later identify.

Dr. Gofman believes that medical radiation is a co-factor in 75 percent of breast cancer cases. If that is the case then it is insanity to subject women of all ages to such a dangerous process in having their breast tissues further irradiated every time they take a commercial flight purely for the convenience of Airport security services around the world.

Are we to ignore these facts and allow ourselves to be herded through such dangerous devices like cattle, without any form of protest? Clearly, the authorities do not have our best interests at heart otherwise we, the travelers of the world, would not be facing such an unprecedented assault on our health and well being, now and in the future. We must make a noise and refuse to submit to such dangerous procedures for the benefit of a few security firms that will profit enormously from the introduction of this very expensive totally intrusive and undeniably dangerous equipment.

I for one will refuse to be scanned, and have no doubt in my mind that the authorities will try and make my travel life very difficult as a result. That said, it’s what I expect from such draconian minds and will use the experience as part of the case I envisage I will have to bring against them for impinging on my civil rights and endangering my health and the health of all the travelers of the world. Just say no.

~Sean Casey