Journeying By Commercial Airline Carriers Could Mean Close Up Encounters With Airport Full Body Scanners
The thwarted terrorist assault on a passenger jet going to Detroit, where the would be terrorist had explosives in his underwear, has got governments around the world planning to install security scanners at airports in order to, hopefully, block any other suicidal terrorist from smuggling explosives onto commercial airlines.
Airport Security scanners use one ot two systems - millimeter wave sensors or backscatter X-rays. As the majority of full body scanners installed are the backscatter X-ray type this article will be about them only. The question that both passengers and governments should be asking but are not doing so is. Is the full body scanner safe to use? Will habitual airline passengers who are scanned many times a year suffer any unfavorable effects to their health?
X-rays:
X-rays, also called Rontgen Rays, are a type of ionizing radiation. If you have ever had an X-ray you will know that when the Radiologists takes the X-ray he stands behind a radiation proof screen in order to shield himself against 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 subjection to X-rays can cause malignant tumors.
According to Cancer Research UK. The percentage of cancers caused by X-rays is 0.6 percent.
Mammograms:
Women at high risk -- those with a genetic or inherited predisposition to breast cancer -- who may have had five or more mammograms during their twenties were 2.5 times more likely to develop breast cancer than high-risk women that had not received any mammograms.
Older women at high risk increased their chances of developing breast malignant tumors by 1.5 times by having mammograms. Simply, in high risk women, mammograms increase the chances of getting breast cancer. The more mammograms you have the greater the risk of having cancer.
Upon reviewing the scientific evidence the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has made new recommendations regarding mammograms.
Particularly, that women under the age of 50 do not need 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 nevertheless X-rays. The same type 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 how about the amount of ionizing radiation a female would receive if she were scanned with a Backscatter X-ray full body scanner every time she went on a trip on a commercial airline.
CT Scans:
One can find more than enough evidence to show that exposure to X-rays is hazardous to your health. It would be advisable to lessen exposure to ionizing radiation as much as possible. A way to do this would be to not have any unnecessary medical X-rays. For example some people have yearly full body CT scans as part of a yearly health and wellbeing check-up.
According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine a third of all CT scans are medically not necessary. When you consider that throughout the year 2006, in the US, there were over 62 million CT scans, that means there were over 20 million unnecessary CT scans performed that year.
All of the airports will eventually have body scanners installed for the purpose of security reasons. You can currently opt out of the airport body scanner and have a pat-down, but this may change some time in the future since airports would prefer everybody to go through the scanner.
If you fly on a regular basis then, according to the scientific evidence, you are going to be exposing yourself to X-rays which could cause you to sustain serious health problems.
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