Group calls for checks on radiation danger
A new report has said that air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings, highlighting the danger of cancer causing radiation. According to a the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety report, reported by Bloomberg, pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, even though the radiation dose from body scanners is “extremely small”. The committee includes the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization.
A more accurate assessment about the health risks of the screening won’t be possible until governments decide whether all passengers will be systematically scanned or randomly selected, the report added. It recommended that governments justify the additional risk posed to passengers, and should consider “other techniques to achieve the same end”.
According to Bloomberg, the US government has pledged US$734 million (£469 million) to deploy airport scanners, while the UK is among several other nations to have implemented the technology, amid concerns about privacy. The scanners use x-ray technology to create a full scan of passengers’ bodies.
“There is little doubt that the doses from the backscatter x-ray systems being proposed for airport security purposes are very low,” Health Protection Agency doctor, Michael Clark was quoted saying. “The issue raised by the report is that even though doses from the systems are very low, they feel there is still a need for countries to justify exposures.”
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