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It's a known fact that x-rays can cause radiation poisoning and very bad adverse effects with prolonged exposure.
Can Superman's X-Ray vision (since his eyes emit the rays rather than absorb them) cause such damage to the average human?
Has this issue been addressed in the comics at any time?
EDIT
The reason why I say he can emit the radiation is because of these panels in Action Comics #2 (Oct 2011)
Superman's "X-ray" vision is not really based on emitting actual X-rays. There are 3 reasons we know that's not the case:
Most importantly, X-rays don't get reflected from most objects/materials (due to their wavelength) same way that visible light might, they pass through them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray . As an example, cloths are transparent to X-Rays, as are soft body tissues.
Real X-Rays work by virtue of the emitter and the sensor being on OPPOSITE sides from the x-rayed object/subject. Superman's vision therefore couldn't have been an X-Ray emitter since to see the result he'd need to stand BEHIND the object to "read" the image shown by the rays while he stood IN FRONT of the object when "shooting" the X-rays from his eyes. That's obviously NOT how his "X-Ray" vision works.
Another proof that his "X-Ray" vision is not X-Ray is that he can see in color (e.g. he can see Lois's underwear color in 1978 "Superman" movie). X-Rays can't show "real" colors since these colors are an artifact of visible light wavelength (basically, different color cloths would absorb some VISIBLE light wavelengths and reflect others).
Related to #1, Superman's "X-Ray" vision can penetrate matter selectively - basically, focus at will. See the above-mentioned seeing through cloths but NOT through underwear.
As to how this works, there are 2 possible explanations:
Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_vision ) explains that the best "explanation" of how Superman's "X-Ray" vision works is some sort of psychic/remote viewing ability. Doesn't make TOO much sense but neither does the entire Superman mythology.
The second is that it IS based on electromagnetic radiation, but the emitter is not Superman's eyes but the Universe. Superman basically simply can see in 100% of the spectrum and his brain can compose coherent picture from the entirety of radiation.
I think the name is a bit of a misnomer because he isn't actually projecting X-Rays at people to see through them; I've always seen it as a way of exploiting the natural background radiation of the world in a way human eyes can't. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_and_abilities_of_Superman has a similar stance:
Explanations for how this power works vary, but rarely include the emission and perception of actual X-Rays, as such high-energy radiation would actually be dangerous to living things he uses it on. A more common theory involves being able to see and concentrate on the patterns of natural cosmic radiation as it reverberates off objects.
Originally, his "X-Ray Vision" was linked to his Heat Vision:
[Heat Vision] was originally considered to be a subset of X-Ray Vision; for example, Superman was known to melt metal with "The heat of his X-Ray vision". As his powers developed and became more defined, however, Heat Vision became distinguished as an individual power.
However, even then, the effects were distinct from the sort of radiation poisoning caused by excessive exposure to X-Rays and such wavelengths of radiation.
