Naked and Nuked: Airport Scanners May Increase Cancer Risk

Conservative friends, Gordon Howie followers, and other wingnuts, if you want to foment anti-government paranoia, then froth up over this one: the Transportation Security Administration may be giving you cancer. It's bad enough the federal government wants to electronically strip you naked at the airport; now scientists at university of California San Francisco say full-body scanners may hit travelers with enough X-rays to "increase the risk of cancer and other health problems, particularly among older travelers, pregnant women and people with weak immune systems."

But why worry? Homeland Security's chief medical officer Alexander Garza says he feels perfectly comfortable nuking his family in the scanners, so so should you, right?

Of course, TSA and other experts will tell you that you get the same dose of radiation from a full-body scanner as you do from two minutes up in the air. (And what do you think that phone in your pocket is doing to your groinal region all day?) But you choose to nuke yourself by flying. The full-body scanners are the government choosing to nuke you against your will, and that's not right, right?

Come on, Tea Party, this could be your next big issue, one that could really get traction, like fears of vaccines causing autism. Latch on, fight the scanners!