MATTHEW L. WALD
NY Times
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
The plan for broad use of X-ray body scanners to detect
bombs or weapons under airline passengers’ clothes has rekindled
a debate about the safety of delivering small doses of radiation to
millions of people — a process some experts say is certain to
result in a few additional cancer deaths.
The scanning machines, called “backscatter
scanners,” deliver a dose of ionizing radiation equivalent to 1
percent or less of the radiation in a dental X-ray. The amount is so
small that the risk to an individual is negligible, according to
radiation experts. But collectively, the radiation doses from the
scanners incrementally increase the risk of fatal cancers among the
thousands or millions of travelers who will be exposed, some radiation
experts believe.
Full-body scanners that are already in place in some airports around
the country and abroad use a different type of imaging technology,
called millimeter wave, that uses less powerful, non-ionizing radiation
that does not pose the same risk.
But those machines also produce images that are less clear. And in
the wake of the attempted bombing of an airplane traveling to Detroit
from Amsterdam on Dec. 25, the United States is turning to backscatter
scanners for routine security checks. Congress has appropriated funds
for 450 scanners to be placed in American airports. On Thursday,
President Obama called for greater use of “imaging
technology” to spot weapons and explosives.
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