Travelling by commercial airlines could mean close encounters with airport full body scanners.

Originally Published January 7, 2010.
Written by Roger Langford.

The thwarted terrorist attack on a passenger jet going to Detroit, where the would be terrorist had explosives in his underwear, has got governments around the world, and in particular the US and UK governments, planning to install full body scanners at airports in order to, hopefully, stop any other suicidal terrorist from smuggling explosives onto commercial airlines.

Full-body scanners use one of two technologies - millimeter wave sensors or backscatter X-rays. The question that both passengers and governments should be asking but are not doing so is. Are these full body scanners safe to use? Will regular airline passengers who are scanned many times a year suffer any detrimental affects to their health?

X-rays:

X-rays, also called Rontgen Rays, are a form of ionizing radiation. They were discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen in 1895.

As X-rays are especially useful in detecting abnormalities in the skeletal system this has been there main use in medicine but X-rays can also be used to identify diseases in soft tissue such as the lungs. Yearly chest X-rays became popular during the 1950s in order to diagnose tuberculosis but then it was discovered that X-rays cause cancer. The yearly chest X-rays were discontinued.

If you have ever had an X-ray then you will know that when the Radiologists takes the X-ray he stands behind a radiation proof screen in order to protect himself from the ionizing radiation.

If you have had a X-ray while at the dentists you will notice that the Dentist will also stand behind a screen or leave the room while the X-ray is taken. Radiologists and Dentists know that exposure to X-rays can cause cancer.

According to Amy Berrington de González, of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and Sarah Darby, of Cancer Research UK. The percentage of cancers caused by X-rays is 0.6 percent. Or put another way, out of every 167 cases of diagnosed cancer, one will be caused by X-rays.

Mammograms:

Dr. Jansen-van der Weide and colleagues, from the Department of Epidemiology and Radiology at University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, analyzed peer-reviewed, published medical research to investigate whether low-dose radiation exposure affects breast cancer risk among high-risk women. The results were as follows.

Women at high risk – those with a genetic or familial predisposition to breast cancer – who have had five or more mammograms during their twenties were 2.5 times more likely to develop breast cancer than high-risk women who had not had any mammograms.

Older women at high risk increased their chances of developing breast cancer by 1.5 times by having mammograms. Basically, in high risk women, mammograms increase the chances of getting breast cancer. The more mammograms you have the greater the risk of getting cancer.

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force:

After reviewing the scientific evidence the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has made new recommendations regarding mammograms.

Specifically, that women under the age of 50 should not have mammograms unless there is a very good reason for doing so. That women over 50 should only get them every other year. The radiation from mammograms may be low-dose radiation but it is still X-rays. The same kind of ionizing radiation used in backscatter X-ray full body scanners.

If having a mammogram increases the risk of a woman developing breast cancer then what about the amount of ionizing radiation a woman would receive if she was scanned with a Backscatter X-ray full body scanner every time she went on a journey on a commercial airline.

Millimeter Wave Sensors:

Millimeter-wave imaging technology comes in two types:

1. passive detection system, also called passive imaging system or passive millimeter wave imager. This type produces no electromagnetic radiation and is therefore considered safe for human use.

2. active detection system, also called active imaging system. An active detection system involves bouncing millimeter pulsed noise like waves, usually 95 GHz, off the subject in a manner analogous to radar.

CT Scans:

There is more than enough evidence to show that exposure to X-rays is hazardous to your health. It would be advisable to reduce exposure to ionizing radiation as much as possible. One way to do this would be to not have any unnecessary medical X-rays. For example some people have annual full body CT scans as part of a yearly health check-up.

According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine a third of all CT scans are medically unnecessary. When you consider that during the year 2006 there were over 62 million CT scans, that means there were over 20 million unnecessary CT scans performed that year.

What will Governments do:

Now that airports are installing full body scanners for security reasons it will become more difficult to avoid X-rays if you are a regular flyer with commercial airlines. It is more than likely that eventually all airports will have these body scanners installed, so it will not even be possible to avoid them by flying from airports that do not have them. If your local airport has installed passive millimeter wave imaging type body scanners then there is no problem as these are deemed to be safe.

If governments decided to install passive millimeter wave imaging type body scanners, in all airports throughout the country, in order to prevent citizens from being over exposed to ionizing radiation there would not be a problem and it would be taxpayers money well spent.

If governments choose Backscatter X-ray body scanners to be installed at airports passengers, who fly by commercial airlines on a regular basis, will, according to the scientific evidence, suffer some serious health problems.

© Copyright 2010 Roger Langford. All Rights Reserved