Category: Health

TSA body scanners

If you’ve flown anywhere in the past several years, you probably saw, or had to go through, a full-body scanner at the security checkpoint.  There are two technologies in use there.  One is a circular chamber that low powered millimeter waves, to see if you’re hiding anything under your clothes (this is referred to as a millimeter wave scanner).  There’s really little risk associated with this type of scanner, it’s not a big deal at all.  The other technology has you walk between two large blue or gray boxes, and uses low levels of ionizing radiation to perform the same function (this is referred to as a backscatter scanner).  A more detailed comparison of the two technologies can be viewed here.

So what’s the big deal?  Well, the problem is that the backscatter scanners have never been independently tested and shown to be safe.  The government says they’re safe (with little evidence to support that), while the scientific and medical community has serious concerns about their safety.  Apart from the lack of testing, there’s the basic principle in radiation safety that people should never be x-rayed unless there’s a medical benefit.  The risk is real enough that it’s believe that some number of people will get cancer every year from this (the exact number is unknown, but probably less than 100).

So, given that there is a safer alternative, why use backscatter technology at all?  Good question.  Europe has banned them altogether.   Thankfully, there’s now a bill in Congress that would require an independent study on the health and safety of these body scanning technologies.  In a perfect world they’d do the study BEFORE spending money buying and deploying so many of these, but hey, better late than money.  The reality is that lobbyists and corporate interests seem to be heavily influencing the use of these technologies in our country.

In the meantime, what can you do?  If you’re lucky, you can choose to fly to and from airports that are using the millimeter wave technology instead; there’s a very detailed list of what technologies are used at various airports over at flyertalk.com.  You may also find that airports that have the backscatter scanners installed only rarely use them, instead funneling people through traditional metal detectors.

Antibacterial steel

Yesterday I wrote about the dangerous of evolving antibiotic resistant bacteria.  I’m convinced that globally, we won’t be able to decrease the usage of antibiotics enough to prevent the evolution of those bacteria, so instead we need to focus on technologies to fight them.  One cool one is a new metal alloy, that adds silver, nitrogen, and carbon to the surface of a stainless steel alloy.  The result is metal that helps prevent the spread of any bacteria (well, until they become resistant to that…!).  Read more here.

A similar approach uses a special coating (paint-like), applied to any surface, that kills MRSA bacteria.  It uses a special enzyme to directly target MRSA.  The applications are probably pretty limited for now, but it illustrates one way that technology will likely be used in the future to combat this problem.

Superbugs

Antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’ are perhaps one of the scariest byproducts of our modern lifestyle and society.  The gist of it is, bacteria, like any living organism, evolves to survive in its environment.  When exposed to antibiotics, some bacteria may have traits or mutations that help them survive longer than others; this can be passed on to future generations if they survive.  Over time and with more exposure to antibiotics, they can grow stronger and stronger.  NDM-1 is a new bug in the wild that appears resistant to ALL antibiotics, MRSA is another (though MRSA can still be treated, to some extent).  Antibiotic use in cattle is believed to be a big cause of the creation of superbugs like these, so it’s a bit of a surprise lately that the FDA announced it will no longer regulate the use of antibiotics in cattle!  This is in spite of studies showing a large percentage of meat samples (~50%) had MRSA.  A letter from a group of medical and health professionals stated,

The evidence is so strong of a link between misuse of antibiotics in food animals and human antibiotic resistance that FDA and Congress should be acting much more boldly and urgently to protect these vital drugs for human illness.

The issue is serious enough that there’s even a lawsuit against the FDA, claiming the agency is not doing enough about this health threat.

If you care about issues like these, go read the full article at the New York Times for yourself.  This issue is not confined to the FDA or cattle, this is about the use of antibiotics globally.  We’d be fools to expect human behavior to change enough to eliminate this problem; rather, we need to recognize the changes we are creating in our environment, and pursue technologies that can help alleviate the problem we’re creating.

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