The company’s vice president of marketing Joe Reiss told me in an interview that any dosage received by a human from these backscatter vans would be "exceedingly small," far smaller than a medical x-ray. He says that the vans’ dosage falls well within the health standards set by American National Standards Institute, and AS&E’s marketing materials say that the scan’s x-ray levels are equivalent to the dosage received in fifteen minutes inside a typical airplane.
They neglect to mention is that the nature of backscatter X-ray technology concentrates the radiation exposure on the skin's surface and underlying tissue, causing a significantly higher local dosage than medical X-ray technology and a typical airplane ride. For medical X-rays, precautions are also taken to avoid exposure to reproductive organs, since genital exposure to X-rays in parents is associated with leukemia and other diseases in their children. This is not the case with backscatter X-ray machines, and it is especially relevant for men, since their reproductive organs are so close to the skin's surface.
Obviously, these things can't be turning up everywhere, or that remote possibility that a person would be scanned over 1000 times per year is all-of-a-sudden not so remote. Some regulation is clearly needed.
[Another interesting question is how the drivers of these vans are protected from cumulative radiation exposure, as these X-rays are being scattered around them all day.]
The company’s vice president of marketing Joe Reiss told me in an interview that any dosage received by a human from these backscatter vans would be "exceedingly small," far smaller than a medical x-ray. He says that the vans’ dosage falls well within the health standards set by American National Standards Institute, and AS&E’s marketing materials say that the scan’s x-ray levels are equivalent to the dosage received in fifteen minutes inside a typical airplane.