The thwarted terrorist attack on a passenger jet traveling to Detroit, where the would be terrorist had explosives in his under-wear, has got governments around the world planning to install body scanners at airports in order to, hopefully, block any other suicidal terrorist from taking explosives onto commercial airlines.

Airport Full body scanners use one ot two systems - millimeter wave sensors or backscatter X-rays. As the majority of security scanners installed are the backscatter X-ray type this article will be about them. The question that both passengers and governments should be wanting to know but are not doing so is. Is the full body scanner safe to use? Will regular airline passengers who are scanned several times a year experience any undesirable effects to their health?

X-rays:

X-rays, also called Rontgen Rays, are a form of ionizing radiation. If you have previously had an X-ray you will realize that when the Radiologists takes a X-ray he stands at the back of a radiation proof screen so as to safeguard himself from the ionizing radiation.

If you have had a X-ray whilst at the dental practitioners you will notice that the Dentist will also stand at the rear of a screen or leave the room while the X-ray is taken. Radiologists and Dental practitioners realize that subjection to X-rays can cause cancer.

As reported by Cancer Research UK. The proportion of cancers caused by X-rays is 0.6 percent.

Mammograms:

Females at high risk -- individuals with a hereditary or inherited predisposition to breast cancer -- who have had 5 or more mammograms during their twenties were found to be 2.5 times more likely to develop breast malignant tumors as compared to high-risk women that had not had any mammograms.

Elderly women at high-risk increased their likelihood of having breast malignant tumors by 1.5 times by having mammograms. Basically, in high risk females, mammograms increase the chances of getting breast cancer. The greater the number of mammograms you have the higher the likelihood of having cancer.

After reviewing the clinical evidence the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has published new suggestions concerning mammograms.

Particularly, that women under the age of 50 should not have mammograms unless there exists a very good reason for doing so. That women above 50 should only get them every second year. The radiation from mammograms might be low-dose radiation but it is nevertheless X-rays. The same kind of ionizing radiation used in backscatter X-ray full body scanning equipment.

If having a mammogram raises the risk of a female having breast cancer then how about the amount of ionizing radiation a woman would be receiving if she were scanned using a Backscatter X-ray full body scanner whenever she took a trip on a commercial airline.

CT Scans:

There is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that exposure to X-rays is hazardous for your health. It might be recommended to lessen exposure to ionizing radiation as much as possible. One way to accomplish this is to not have any unneeded medical X-rays. For example some individuals get yearly full body CT scans as part of a yearly health check-up.

As per a report in the New England Journal of Medicine one third of all CT scans will be clinically not necessary. When you consider that during the year 2006, in the US, there was over 62 million CT scans, which means there were over 20 million nonessential CT scans done that year.

All of the airports will eventually have body scanners installed for security reasons. You may currently opt out of the airport body scanner and have a pat-down, however this may change any time sooner or later since airports would prefer everyone to go through the body scanner.

In the event you fly regularly then, according to the medical research, you are going to be exposing yourself to X-rays which could cause you to suffer serious health issues.

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