X-ray scanners at airports: how can I avoid dd getting an unnecessary dose of radiation?

[intermittentrain]

Dd is 13 and wants to fly alone to France to join a friend's family. I don't want her to have to go through the X-ray security scanners because I don't think she should have a dose of radiation when it's not medically necessary or in the interests of her health in any way.

We've been looking at airports outside of London which don't have the scanners. Or we could drive her over.

How does this scanning work? As I understand it, not all passengers are scanned, but if they call you for scanning and you refuse, you are grounded, ie you can't fly and you lose your ticket money. If necessary, we could take that risk; but dd would have to have the guts to say, no, I'm not doing it, and we would then drive her over.

What do other people do, please?

There is obviously no point discussing this with you OP you're not remotely interested in listening to other peoples opinions on this matter.

I'm very interested indeed in what woodpeckers and Widgeon have got to say; and I've found people's accounts of their experiences useful, too.

People always trot out this thing about how you get loads of radiation when you fly. The local orthodontist trotted it out, saying orthodontic X-rays are as nothing compared to what you get when you fly. But in that case, are air crew allowed to continue flying when pregnant?

I'm on the search list whenever I fly. This is possibly the best way to avoid being scanned. On each and every flight I am called aside for a pat down and wanding (magnetic). However unless she is willing and able to work in a slightly iffy branch of technology for a decade she may just have to walk through the tunnel of doom

She's a bit young as yet...however, if you know of a vacancy...

Best to start young......

Aircrew are allowed to continue flying when pregnant and there is no evidence of foetal issues/abnormalities as a result of being Aircrew, likewise no evidence of frequent miscarriage with Aircrew.

There has been one study which found evidence for increased incidence of breast cancer in Aircrew (but that's another matter).

Aircrew are monitored. They wear TLD badges that monitor their radiation dose on a monthly basis to ensure they remain under the legal level of worker radiation exposure. Although they'd pretty much have to stay in the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and still wouldn't quite make it.

Are you going to ask next if astronauts are allowed to go into space when pregnant?

What all this has to do with your DD going in a body scanner is beyond me. She is extremely unlikely to be xrayed anyway.

Do you know what the legal level of worker radiation exposure is?

I can't tell you how people are selected to be scanned because I'd have to kill you (and also I'm on maternity leave at the moment so don't have the very most up to date info on this) but you might be interested in this sentence from the Code of Practice I linked to:

"Passengers must not be selected on the basis of personal characteristics (i.e.
on a basis that may constitute discrimination such as gender, age, race or
ethnic origin".

So they don't automatically scan everyone in a headscarf, or all Asians, or all men in their 20s, for example.

Just to address the point about the thought that selection for scanning is by random sampling suggesting the OP was overly anxious - actually lots of security procedures work on the basis of random sampling.

Spottyfrock - it's because the "risk" is so small as to be nothing to worry about, for individual pregnant women. Your foetus is probably at hundreds of times more risk from the car fumes you inhale as you walk along the road, or the paint fumes you inhale as you do up the baby's nursery. Certainly the minute minute risk to pregnant women far outweighs the benefits of having this kind of advanced technology.

If she is 13 she won't be pulled out for the Rapiscan.

If used on under-18s the images it produces could possibly be classed as an indecent photograph of a child under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and BAA really don't want that tested in court.

For what it's worth, when they were trialling the system at Gatwick in 2004, the passengers being pulled out at 'random' by the male operators all seemed to be attractive young women - funny that...

Thanks, Wigeon, that's what I had understood from Eurochick's post. To have the metal detector going beep at random intervals seemed to make sense as a way of ensuring random selection rather than discriminatory selection based, for example, on racial characteristics.

Malinois, are you sure about that?

The maximum level is 6mSv per year for a classified worker under IRR99. Aircrew are not even classified workers and their limit is 1mSv per year.
And this is law. Anyone achieving this level will have to cease all radiation work unilateral the following year and anyone exceeding it will undergo investigation to ascertain how they received over this amount.

Seriously though, this really isn't relevant to your DD. You're just being awkward now and there is no reasoning with you.

Unilateral???? Until!!!!

Oh for goodness sake

intermmitent:

It was certainly the case for the Manchester trial. Article here

The anecdote about the Gatwick trial was based purely on my own observations going through departure security once a week for 6 months. Of course it could have been coincidence or selection bias on my part but it did very much look like a bunch of dirty buggers with nothing better to do than to look at blurry pictures of young women in the nip. I got called 3 times which I found very flattering :)

Trotting it out? (rolls eyes)

I love it when OPs ignore reason everyone else and only listen to people who support their bonkersness reasoning.

We are flying out of Manchester next month and have already been warned that we will have to go through the scanner thingy. DS had almost the maximum dose of radiotherapy/radiation for life when he was treated for cancer some years back.

We asked his consultant if going through the scanner would be a problem. He looked at us like and said 'Errr no of course, not. Such low levels are not worth worrying about'

Btw a relative of mine is a Professor of Nuclear Medicine. He travels the world to attend conferences and give lectures and must have been scanned hundreds of times on the way out and on the way back. If he is happy to do it then it must be ok I think.

Oh.. and what will you do when she hits 18 and wants to go to Ayia Napa/Malia/San Antonio or somewhere else overseas etc etc etc. Drive her there?

Calm down OP and stop worrying.

But how is it that you have already been warned that you'll have to go through the scanner thingy, Busters, if it's by random selection? And I think it's people like your ds who ought to be specifically exempted.

I should add that I have absolutely no safety concerns about backscatter X-ray at all. I do however have serious reservations about them from a civil liberties and privacy perspective and think that this is a much more serious problem than a bunch of DM scare stories about radiation.

The civil liberties angle is certainly an important one.

My own view is that they will have to change the technology to a safer one, and hopefully soon. Or at least start allowing people to opt for pat-downs as in the US.

See here's a guy arguing for better technology, for example:

"Dr David Brenner, head of Columbia University's centre for radiological research, said although the danger posed to the individual passenger is 'very low', he is urging researchers to carry out more tests on the device to look at the way it affects specific groups who could be more sensitive to radiation.
He says children and passengers with gene mutations - around one in 20 of the population - are more at risk as they are less able to repair X-ray damage to their DNA.
The most likely risk from the airport scanners is a common type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma, according to the academic.
The cancer is usually curable and often occurs in the head and neck of people aged between 50 and 70. He points out it would be difficult to hide a weapon on the head or neck so proposes missing out that part of the body from the scanning process.
'If there are increases in cancers as a result of irradiation of children, they would most likely appear some decades in the future. It would be prudent not to scan the head and neck,' he added."

Disclaimer: source is indeed the Daily Mail.

Only through our holiday paperwork saying that Manchester are operating the new scanners.

Maybe I'm being presumptious in expecting that we might be selected to go through them but having spoken to DS's consultant there is no reason for him to be exempted on health grounds His doctors saved his life so I have no reason to doubt them on this.

You just carry on googling to suit your own aims and opinions...

I give up.

I feel very sorry for your DD and hope you come to your senses regarding this one very, very, very minor risk in a life full of risks.