Airport Scanners May Harm DNA, Not Just Privacy and Dignity

Claims that airport scanners are safe, because terahertz waves are too weak to cause harm, are based on nothing but wishful thinking. They can literally tear DNA apart.

by Heidi Stevenson

19 February 2011

Airport scanners are claimed to be safe. The claim is based on the idea that the terahertz waves they use are too weak to break chemical bonds or ionize atoms. That's true enough, but it's not the whole truth. Just as bridges can be brought down by relatively low winds when the harmonics are just right, DNA can be torn apart by terahertz waves. Every time you stand in a scanner, you may be allowing worse damage than that caused by x-rays, which are known to cause cancer.

Terahertz waves are truly different from x-rays. They're used in scanners because they can peek underneath clothing, and even identify the chemical composition of what's found. Modern medicine has high hopes of using them to diagnose tumors.

Terahertz waves can't break chemical bonds apart. They can't ionize atoms. Because of that, it was conveniently assumed that they can't do any harm. However, Boian Alexandrov of the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and his research team wondered why the results of studies were varied. He stated:

Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none.

Alexandrov and his team developed a model to see how terahertz waves interact with DNA. The results are disconcerting. They found that, though the forces are tiny, they can create a resonance with DNA that results in tearing them apart, creating separations, or bubbles, in the strands. The effect is equivalent to how a bridge was torn apart in winds that were believed to be far too low. It was harmonics. The bridge's inherent harmonics matched those of the wind, so the wave effect was multiplied many times over. The same thing happens to DNA when struck by terahertz waves. (Click here for a view of Galloping Gertie's collapse. It's quite impressive. ) This could drastically affect DNA's ability to carry out its functions in cells.

They describe the effect as probabilistic, rather than deterministic. This means that damage caused by terahertz waves is not determined in a simple cause-and-effect manner, but is more closely related to probabilistic behavior at the subatomic level. It explains why similar studies of terahertz waves could have opposite results.

Lest anyone suggest that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) couldn't have known of the danger in scanners before rolling them out, the fact is that this study came out before they were put into use. Before this study, there were studies that documented both no harm and serious harm. So, the DHS simply picked the studies that showed what they wanted to see and ignored the rest—including the one that demonstrated why harm would exist, even though some studies don't show it.

What effects will terahertz wave bombardment have on your health, the health of growing and developing children, fetuses, and future generations? Who knows? Apparently, the DHS is determined to find out by using the public as guinea pigs. Considering how extensively they plan to use the things, as they're already appearing in courthouses and shopping malls, it may be virtually impossible to avoid them, unless you can live completely off the grid and grow your own food.

America, one giant test tube—and a patient-creator for Big Pharma!

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