Full-body scanners pose skin cancer risk?

How safe are full-body scanners?

Published 30 November 2010

The U.S. government says that the dose of an airport backscatter X-ray scan -- the one used in full-body scanning -- is so low, you will have to be exposed to 1,000 backscatter X-rays to receive the radiation dosage of one chest X-ray; scientists say this is precisely the problem: when a person is exposed to higher-energy radiation -- as in a hospital -- it passes through the body, delivering a similar dose of radiation throughout; the energy of the backscatter X-rays is lower than in a chest X-ray, which means it stops at the skin; the result: the body as a whole receives far less radiation at an airport than it does at a hospital -- but a traveler's skin receives a much higher dose of radiation at an airport relative to what it receives in a hospital