The prevented terrorist attack on a passenger jet heading to Detroit, where the would be terrorist had explosives in his underwear, has got governments around the world arranging to install body scanners at airports in order to, hopefully, stop any other suicidal terrorist from smuggling explosives onto commercial airlines.

Airport Security scanners use one ot two technologies - millimeter wave sensors or backscatter X-rays. As nearly all security scanners installed are the backscatter type this article will be about them only. The question that both passengers and governments need to be asking but are not doing so is. Is the full body scanner safe to use? Will regular airline passengers who are scanned many times a year suffer any detrimental consequences to their health?

X-rays:

X-rays, also called Rontgen Rays, are a form of ionizing radiation. If you have at any time had an X-ray you will know that while the Radiologists takes the X-ray he stands behind a radiation proof screen in order to protect herself from the ionizing radiation.

If you have had a X-ray when at the dentists you will see that the Dentist will also stand at the rear of a screen or leave the room while the X-ray is taken. Radiologists and Dentists know that exposure to X-rays can result in cancer.

As per Cancer Research UK. The percentage of cancers due to X-rays is 0.6 percent.

Mammograms:

Females at high risk -- those with a genetic or familial predisposition to breast tumors -- who have received five or more mammograms in their twenties were 2.5 times more likely to develop breast cancer than high-risk women who has not had any kind of mammograms.

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

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

Specifically, that women younger than 50 should not have mammograms unless that there is a 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 exact same kind of ionizing radiation utilized in backscatter X-ray full body scanners.

If getting a mammogram increases the risk of a woman developing breast cancer then what about the level of ionizing radiation a woman might receive if she were being scanned with a Backscatter X-ray full body scanner every time she went on a journey upon a commercial airline.

CT Scans:

There is more than enough proof to show that exposure to X-rays is harmful to your health. It would be advisable to reduce exposure to ionizing radiation whenever possible. One way to achieve this would be to not have any kind of unnecessary medical X-rays. For example some people have annual full body CT scans as part of an annual health examination.

According to a research report in the New England Journal of Medicine a third of all CT scans are medically unnecessary. Considering that during the year 2006, in the United States, there were greater than 62 million CT scans, which means there were over 20 million unnecessary CT scans performed that year.

All airports will ultimately have body scanners installed for security purposes. You can currently opt out of the airport body scanner and get a pat-down, but this may change some time in the future as airports really want everyone to go through the full body scanner.

If you travel regularly then, according to the scientific evidence, you will be exposing yourself to X-rays which may cause you to suffer severe health problems.

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