Scientists are warning that the radiation emitted from full-body airport scanners has been seriously underestimated and could lead to an increase in skin cancer. According to Dr. David Brenner, head of Columbia University's center for radiological research, the dose absorbed by the skin may be up to 20 times higher than previously thought.
Brenner told the Daily Mail that some groups, such as children and adults with gene mutations, are more sensitive to radiation. "The population risk has the potential to be significant," he said.
Full-body scanners use low energy beams, which concentrate most of the radiation in the skin and underlying tissue, says University of California biochemist David Argard. "While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high," he told Digital Journal.
The most likely risk from scanners is a type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma. It is most common on the head and neck and usually occurs in people between the ages of 50 and 70. Brenner suggests not including the head and neck in scans since it would be difficult to hide weapons in those areas.
"If there are increases in cancers as a result of irradiation of children, they would most likely appear some decades in the future," Brenner said. "It would be prudent not to scan the head and neck."
Brenner recently told his concerns to the U.S. Congressional Biomedical Caucus, recommending they balance safety issues with health issues when flying.
Brenner was previously consulted during the writing of guidelines for the scanners, but says he would have never signed the report if he had known scanners would be used so widely.
The Civil Aviation Authority insists the scans are safe. According to the CAA, radiation from a scan is the same received during two minutes of a transatlantic flight, and it would take 5,000 scans to equal the radiation dose from a single X-ray.
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