TSA pat-down or body scanner?
Are you flying this holiday season? At the security checkpoint will you go through the body scanner or opt out and get "patted" down? Besides the obvious privacy concerns with the body scan is there a health risk involved? Let's take a quick look.
Based on initial research the amount of radiation exposure from the body scanner is minimal, less than a standard x-ray. However, the scanner used by the TSA emits various levels of radiation to the body. That means that some areas of the body do in fact receive low doses of radiation but most of the dose is concentrated on the skin. In fact the backscatter technology used in the body scanner has the potential to cause fatal skin cancer.
"The risk of harmful radiation exposure from backscatter scans is very small, according to David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University and a professor of radiation biophysics. But he said he is concerned about how widely the scanners will be used. "If you think of the entire population of, shall we say a billion people per year going through these scanners, it's very likely that some number of those will develop (skin) cancer from the radiation from these scanners," Brenner said.
For more information check out Dr. Mercola's excellent article: