WiFi
promoters always say, "Only ionizing radiation is
harmful!"
Do
these people know that Ionizing X-ray used to be hailed as magic and
considered perfectly safe, too? It was used for shoe-fitting in shoe
stores for almost 40 years! It was only partially banned in the
1950's and more widely banned in the 1960's. Why did it take so long?
Because the effects didn't show up right away and governments were
slow to take Precaution. People were pressured to adopt "the
latest technology" and the industry targeted children for
marketing before long-term studies were in place to ensure its
safety.
Sounds
familiar? In the 1950's, fearmongerers were probably busy making lead
aprons to protect themselves from ionizing radiation, while industry
shills and “cutting edge” technologists laughed at them much like
they do with tin-foil hats nowadays!
X-Ray
Shoe Fitter
"The
X-ray shoe fitter quickly became a fixture in American shoe stores,
taking advantage of several developing social trends. By continuing
to celebrate the amazing properties of X-rays and radium, popular
magazines and newspapers of the 1920s reinforced the notion that the
devices were modern, scientific, and infallible. In addition, since
the early 20th century, the "scientific motherhood"
movement had pressured American women to incorporate the latest
medical and scientific innovations into their domestic duties to be
considered successful mothers. At the same time, advertisers
increasingly targeted children. The fluoroscope proved a powerful
method of encouraging parents to bring children to their store: as
the Canadian Shoe and Leather Journal put it in 1947, "Kiddies
love it!"
"While
the theoretical dangers of excessive radiation exposure were already
fairly well known within the scientific field, actual data on shoe
store exposure did not appear until the late 1940s. Towards the end
of that decade articles in medical journals began to document the
potential health effects of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes (skin and bone
marrow damage; growth problems). At the same time, other research
discovered that a high percentage of the nearly 10,000 fluoroscopes
in use in the United States emitted dangerous levels of radiation for
both customers and clerks. Various health and industrial hygiene
organizations began recommending against using the devices. On
November 24, 1950, Milwaukee became one of the first cities in the
nation to regulate the operation and location of the machines, and in
1957 Pennsylvania became the first state to outlaw their use. By
1960, 34 states had banned the machines.
By
then, shoe-fitting fluoroscopes were already on their way out, not so
much because of regulations as because they had lost their marketing
effectiveness. X-ray shoe fitters were now more likely to alienate
well-informed customers than to attract them with promises of
infallible technology."
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/artifacts/archives/002457.asp
As
seen in this report by the European Environmental Agency,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874173/
it took 30 years to discover the "certain" causal link
between Cholera and contaminated water.
Incalculable
deaths were caused by this delay.
We
can continue to expose the children to the perfectly safe(?)
non-ionizing radiation, just like it was done with the X-ray Shoes
Fitter.
Let
the children wait and risk their health, or act in Precaution for
them?
* * *
Images and text excerpts from: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/artifacts/archives/002457.asp Thank you!
