Full-Body (Whole Body) Scanners At Airports: Risk Or No Risk?

Main Category: Radiology / Nuclear Medicine
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 28 Jan 2010 - 2:00 PDT

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In the wake of the failed attempt by would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to destroy Northwest flight 253 as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas day, airports around the world are considering mandatory installations of full-body (whole body) scanners including backscatter systems. Numerous media organizations have reported on whether radiation exposure from these systems poses a health risk to those who are scanned. As mandated by the Transportation Security Administration, many airports in the United States may soon have the scanners. While many critics of the program have argued such scanning can increase the risk of cancer, others, including the American College of Radiology (ACR), say this technology has little risk.

Mahadevappa Mahesh, M.S., Ph.D., F.A.A.P.M., F.A.C.R., associate professor of radiology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and an expert in CT scanning, can put the controversy in context. Mahesh, who is also the chief physicist at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and who currently serves as the president for the Medical Health Physics Section of the national Health Physics Society and a member of the Radiation Control Advisory Board for the State of Maryland, has been featured on the PBS Newshour (formerly PBS News with Jim Lehrer) and on numerous other programs discussing this issue.

Source
Johns Hopkins Medicine

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