Journeying By Commercial Airlines May Possibly Mean Close Encounters With Airport Full Body Scanners

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

Airport Security scanners use one ot two technologies - millimeter wave sensors or backscatter X-rays. As most security scanners installed are the backscatter type this article will be about them. The question that both passengers and governments really 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 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 realize that while the Radiologists takes a X-ray he stands at the back of a radiation proof screen in order to protect herself from the ionizing radiation.

If you have had a X-ray when at the dental practitioners 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 Dental practitioners know that exposure to X-rays could cause cancer.

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

Mammograms:

Females at high risk -- individuals with a genetic or familial predisposition to breast tumors -- who have received 5 or more mammograms in their twenties were found to be 2.5 times more likely to develop breast malignant tumors than high-risk women who has not had any kind of mammograms.

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

After examining the clinical data the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has published new suggestions regarding mammograms.

Specifically, that women younger than 50 should not have mammograms unless that there exists a good reason for doing so. That women above 50 should only get them every second year. The radiation from mammograms may be low-dose radiation but it is still X-rays. Exactly the same kind of ionizing radiation utilized in backscatter X-ray full body scanning equipment.

If getting a mammogram raises the risk of a female developing breast cancer then what about the level of ionizing radiation a woman might be receiving if she were being scanned using a Backscatter X-ray full body scanner each time she went on a journey upon a commercial airline.

CT Scans:

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

As per a research report in the New England Journal of Medicine one third of all CT scans will be medically unnecessary. Considering that during the year 2006, in the United States, there was greater than 62 million CT scans, which means there were over 20 million needless CT scans performed that year.

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

In the event you travel regularly then, according to the medical evidence, you will be exposing yourself to X-rays which can cause you to suffer severe health issues.

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