latimes.com/health/fl-nbcol-body-scanner-cancer-brochu-120101117,0,3026203.c
olumn
latimes.com
Airport body scanners may pose cancer risk, scientists say
Nicole Brochu
Sun Sentinel Columnist
November 17, 2010
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As Americans grow increasingly concerned by the privacy implications of what
many are calling "naked" body scanners at the nation's airports, U.S.
scientists are offering even more reason for worry.
The full-body screenings don't just display graphic images of airline
passengers' and crew members' full, unclothed bodies, they may also pose a
risk of skin cancer.
"They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get
skin cancer from these X-rays," said Dr. Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab
at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins
University school of medicine, according to a Agence France Presse story
<http://www.alternet.org/rights/148849/scientists_warn_naked_body_scanners_m
ay_cause_cancer/> .
Love's comments, reported Sunday on the AlterNet website, came amid calls
for a national revolt
<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/fl-scan-opt-out-protest-2010
1116%2C0%2C3041228.story> on airport body scanners, with plans firming up
for a "National Opt-Out Day" set for Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving,
in which airline passengers are urged to refuse a body scan and opt instead
for a pat down in airport security lines on the busiest travel day of the
year.
Travel experts are predicting chaos in the terminals. But I'm hoping the
added attention sheds more light on the cancer question, because Love is far
from alone in venting his health concerns.
Though the story has yet to get much traction in the mainstream U.S. media,
journalism outlets overseas were abuzz this summer with quotes from U.S.
scientists voicing unease about the health implications of airport body
scanners that act in many ways like X-ray machines.
Dr. David Brenner, head of the center for radiological research at Columbia
University in New York, told the London Telegraph in a June 29 story
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7862265/Airport-body-scanners-
could-give-you-cancer.html> that considering the large number of people who
frequent the nation's airports, wide-ranging exposure, even to minimal
amounts of radiation, could add up to one big concern.
"If all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with
X-rays, then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number
of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk,"
he said. "The population risk has the potential to be significant."
Scientists with the University of California at San Francisco were so
worried that they wrote a letter
<http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf> to the White House
Office of Science and Technology in April raising "a number of red flags" on
the scanners' safety.
"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," the
letter said in part, adding concerns that "independent safety data do not
exist" and raising the potential for further harm if a high dosage was
accidentally emitted.
"Any glitch in power at any point in the hardware (or more importantly in
the software) that stops the device can cause an intense radiation dose to a
single spot on the skin. Who will oversee problems with overall dose after
repair or software problems?"
The Office of Science and Technology last month responded to the concerns
with a nine-page letter
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/fda-backscatt
er-response.pdf> assuring the UCSF scientists that the doses met safety
standards and had been adequately tested.
"The potential health risks from a full-body screening with a general-use
X-ray security system are miniscule," the government agency wrote. "Several
groups of recognized experts have been assembled and have analyzed the
radiation safety issues associated with this technology."
But one co-author of the UCSF letter, biochemist John Sedat, told AFP in
Sunday's AlterNet story, that the government's explanation was "deeply
flawed" and insufficient to ease scientists' concerns.
So are the scanners safe? I guess the verdict's still out. But I for one am
going to be thinking about more than my nether-regions being exposed the
next time I venture through an airport security line.
Nicole Brochu is an editorial writer and health columnist for the Sun
Sentinel. Contact her at [email protected]
<http://us.mc1127.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> .
Copyright C 2010, South Florida Sun-Sentinel <http://www.sun-sentinel.com/>
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