mercola on ionizing radiation

like i said i ain't getting on the plane in the first place,but.....Mercola:


Fears of Radiation Exposure May Be Overblown...
It is important to place this radiation exposure risk in its proper perspective.

Let's look at the reported numbers.

Screening at an airport x-ray scanner produces .02 microsieverts of radiation. But REMEMBER you are only getting them because you are going on a flight. Nearly everyone forgets that when you fly there is also ionizing radiation exposure. In fact on a typical transcontinental flight at 30,000 feet you will be exposed to 20 microsieverts of radiation.

That is ONE HUNDRED times the dose you receive from the scanner.

So if you are willing to accept the risk of air travel radiation how could you possibly justify concern about these scanners?

However, having said that this past year I became aware that the way to reduce your air travel radiation by 99 percent is to fly at night. Just as it is impossible to get a suntan at night, you will avoid virtually all of the radiation when you fly at night.

That is why I nearly fly exclusively at night now, or as far away from noon as practically possible.

I also take 2 mg of astaxanthin every day, which is believed to radically limit damage from ionizing radiation.

But please understand the main point of this article: the REAL health danger is from CT scans, which is FIFTY THOUSAND times the radiation dose of one of these scans. You would have to have one scan every day for 136 years to equal the radiation of one CT scan.

The issue of whether or not the alternative – being groped and potentially humiliated during an 'enhanced' pat-down – is warranted, or even legal, is another issue altogether…

Analysis Only Works if We Aren't Being Lied to
Please understand that this calculation and risk proposal is based on the reported radiation levels. If we are being lied to then all bets are off and we need to reanalyze, but if the numbers are accurate you would have to have to have 100 scans to equal the radiation exposure of one daytime flight.




As for the level of health hazard, I sincerely believe the most significant risk you have when flying is due to ionizing radiation but NOT from these scanners; it is from actually flying at 35,000 feet. We were never meant to be living this high above the ground

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