Airport Body Scan Cancer Risk

Full-body scanners at airports said to pose little cancer risk.

ABC World News (1/6, story 6, 2:05, Walters) reported on whether radiation exposure from full-body scanners to be implemented by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) poses health risks for passengers. ABC (Stark) noted, "Most of the scanners about to be deployed in the US use x-rays to look for objects hidden under clothes." While "exposure to x-rays, to radiation, can increase the risk of cancer," according to "the machine's manufacturers, and an independent study...the scanners pose little risk."
The Los Angeles Times (1/6, Dennis) "Booster Shots" blog reported that for its part, "the American College of Radiology has issued" an official statement that the group "is not aware of any evidence that either of the scanning technologies that the TSA is considering would present significant biological effects for passengers screened."
Reuters (1/7) reports that James Thrall, MD, FACR, of the American College of Radiology and chief of radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, said, "All of the concerns that we have about the medical use of X-rays really don't apply to" the two types of scanners, millimeter wavelength imaging and backscatter X-ray scanners, because "the exposure is extremely low."