Is it true that metal detectors are dangerous to health?

The framework of metal detectors installed in the subway, schools, shopping centers and state institutions are blamed in the occurrence of a number of diseases - from DNA breakdowns to cancer and infertility. We decided to check if there is scientific evidence of the harm of metal detectors.

Possible harm from the framework of metal detectors worries many categories of citizens: parents of schoolchildren, Pregnant And only those planning to get pregnant women, nursing mothers and those who regularly use public transport. For example, a Petersburger, whose real name of the media does not reveal, I complained The Commissioner for the Rights of the Child Svetlana Agipova for the harm of these frames. He began his letter with a terrifying formulation: "The metro of the Northern capital every day kills the health of the inhabitants and guests of our city." Further, the man said that the “radiation from the framework from the framework affects the cardiovascular, immune and reproductive systems, including causing damage to the nervous system, changing its reaction, electroencephalogram, hematoencephalic barrier, provoking the violation of circadian rhythms by intervention in the work of the pineal gland and creating a hormonal Dysbalance, changes in heart rhythm and blood pressure, worsening immunity in relation to pathogens, causing weakness, exhaustion, growth problems, damage to DNA and cancer. ” Not only Petersburgers are worried about this question. In Kazan, the grandmother of a fifth grader recorded a video message called “your children is irradiated” (already Deleted from the YouTube platform, preserved archive Pages). In it, she argued that “the frequency (on which the frames work. - approx. Ed.) Awakers of cancer cells, launches oncop processes. This frequency welds the cells of the genitourinary system. "

Another opponents of the framework are those who call themselves "experts in matters of aurography." “What is the influence of electromagnetic fields on the aura is a very difficult issue, - They say They. “If a person came from the village and walked around Moscow for two days, of course, he will be“ de -energized ”: he watched this in his practice.” So far worried parents from different regions write Appeals officials, in the suburbs went further: in Balashikha parents distribute leaflets against metal detectors, and in electrostal father Forbidden To your son attend school because of the framework.

The metal detector is devicethat allows you to detect metal objects in a neutral or weak -wire environment due to their conductivity. For example, different types of devices allow you to find metal objects in soil, in water, in the walls of houses, under clothing, in baggage or in food products. 

In 1874, French inventor Gustav Truva Built The first prototype of the metal detector. According to his plan, the device was supposed to facilitate the search for the search for metal deposits. An attempt to use the device to find a metal object in the human body I did it Inventor Alexander Bell in 1881. When, on the 20th President of the United States, James Garfield was put up with an attempt, the bullet was stuck in the body. The attending doctors could not detect and extract it with the then familiar method of sounding the wound channel, and Bell offered his help. He gathered his device, tested it, shooting first at a tree, then at the carcasses of animals, and at the end he successfully tested it on a civil war veteran, which also had a stuck bullet in the body. However, in the case of the president, the device did not work. Firstly, the president’s attending physician insisted that Bell sought a bullet only on the right, and the posthumous autopsy showed that it was on the left. Secondly, metal springs of the bed, on which the president lay, interfered with the correct operation of the device. Thus, the metal detector Bella did not find practical application.

Only in 1925, the German emigrant in the USA Gerhard Fisher Patented its version of the metal detector, which was intended to prevent theft of metal parts from factories. A company founded by the inventor, works And today, producing a metal detectors to ensure safety, as well as releasing devices for industrial purposes and for treasure hunters.

Most of modern metal detectors Work According to the principle of “reception - transmission”, that is, in the device there are two inductance coils: receiving and transmitting. If you place a metal object between them, the length of the reflected pulse will change, and the operator will receive a sound or light signal.

The frame can be single -zone or multi -zone, in the first case, it simply determines the presence of a metal object, in the second - it also indicates its approximate location. The principle of operation of the device is also clearly shown in this video.

Radiation in such devices is most often electromagnetic, it refers to non -ionizing radiation. In addition to metal detectors, the principle of electromagnetic fields (EMP) Used In power lines, microwaves, computers, TVs and mobile phones.

Back in 1996, a large multidisciplinary project to study the effect of EMP on the human body began. By data WHO, at least 25,000 studies have been published. Experts note that "today scientific knowledge in this field is much wider than knowledge regarding most chemicals." The WHO is unambiguous in their assessment: "The existing actual data does not indicate the existence of adverse consequences for health from the effects of electromagnetic fields of low levels." Separately, the organization notes that such “blurry” health problems as headache, a sense of anxiety, suicidal moods and depression, nausea, a sense of fatigue and loss of libido, can be associated with EMP, but not directly. Not electromagnetic fields cause these symptoms, but anxiety of the person himself associated with them. The organization also analyzed the effect of EMP on pregnancy: the exposure of fields does not increase the risk of spontaneous miscarriage, congenital malformations, low body weight at birth or congenital diseases.

Moreover, we should not forget that EMP is not exclusively anthropogenic radiation. It is the electromagnetic fields of our planet that make the compass needle always indicate north, and electric fields are also formed in the air during a thunderstorm. IN research Scientists have compared the effect of the device with a separate model of the device with that constant radiation, the influence of which we are subject to the intrauterine period to death. One passage through such a radio detector is just five minutes of life on Earth. And the American Foundation for the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer Calculatedthat the passage through the metal detector at the airport in terms of radiation is equal to one or three minutes of flight in the aircraft. That is, for the flight itself, the passenger will receive a much large dose of irradiation than for scanning by a metal detector. Environmental Protection Agency (USA) Curses Similar numbers: reverse scattering scanners that use low -energy X -ray radiation are absolutely safe, because the amount of radiation received in one scan is equal to two minutes of flight.

If you try to predict the risk of cancer, it turns out that only six out of 100 million air passengers will develop oncological pathology. For comparison, chance Break on a transatlantic flight from Khitrovo (London) to the New York airport named after John Kennedy is 1 to 5.4 million, that is, more than three times higher!

Safe for health and those scanners through which they pass at the inspection of baggage. By standards Production, irradiation from them does not exceed a dose of 0.5 millilatgen in one hour anywhere 5 cm from the outer surface. According to the calculations of the sanitary supervision of the quality of food and US medicines for the year of ordinary life, a person receives 360 millilatgenes. The management also notes that it is absolutely safe to be next to such scanners of pregnant women or children, as well as use food and drinks that have passed through such a scanner. 

Russian departments, in particular Rospotrebnadzor and the FSB, Checked Safety of the framework of the Moscow metro. They came to the conclusion that "doses of X-ray radiation correspond to the permissible level established by sanitary and hygienic requirements."

It is worth noting that people with a pacemaker are extremely Not recommended Go through the metal detector. This is due to the fact that the pacemaker is sensitive to all electromagnetic and magnetic fields, respectively, the metal detector can cause its failure. At the same time, most metal detectors have such a warning on the case, moreover, patients who have undergone this intervention, doctors warn of restrictions.

Thus, metal detectors installed in public buildings, schools, stations, airports and shopping centers, according to available data, do not provoke any diseases. There are limited data that demonstrates the correlation between one oncological diagnosis and the constant exposure of the EMP on children, but scientists have not yet discovered causal communication. Scanners using low -energy X -ray radiation and used at the airport can also be called safe, since their radiation is extremely small. 

Image on the cover: Flickr

Not true

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