The controversial question of whether or not airport full-body scanners emit dangerous radiation may have been solved: There’s little risk in the “extremely small” doses, according to an analysis by medical experts.
The report was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
"The radiation doses emitted by the scans are extremely small; the scans deliver an amount of radiation equivalent to 3 to 9 minutes of the radiation received through normal daily living," wrote Pratik Mehta of the University of California, Berkeley and Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a medical doctor at the University of California, San Francisco in the new report.
The researchers say their models showed that even such small doses of radiation can be expected to result in some additional instances of cancer – perhaps 6 instances over the lifetimes of 100 million people who travel.
"In medicine, we try to balance risks and benefits of everything we do, and thus while the risks are indeed exceedingly small, the scanners should not be deployed unless they provide benefit – improved national security and safety," wrote the authors. “That question "is outside the scope of our expertise."
They said passengers should not fear going through the scanners for health reasons but some still question the necessity of the scanners for “privacy” reasons.
By David Wilkening
