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?

I feel I need to be nice before I can go to bed.

You are obviously scared of radiation, and that is understandable. Radiation can cause cancer (incidentally it can also cure it). I am scared of flying, also an understandable fear because aeroplanes can crash. We both have a genuine fear of something. But I would never push my fears however informed or uninformed on my child.

I feel sorry for the OP. I am more scared of having a general anaesthetic than flying or going through a scanner. DS has had more general anaesthetics than flights, is still up to the max on radiation limits and yet is still cleared to go through a scanner. Will still be flying to Greece tho!

celadon Rapiscan isn't microwave it's x-ray. The Proscan units used in the US are microwave however, although they call it millimetre wave to avoid scaring anyone.

When I went through the scanner at LGW during the 2004 trial there was no remote viewing room and the operators were all men. I know this because out of genuine scientific interest I asked to seen my images. They were very keen to show off their technology and led me round to the console and showed me the images they had just taken of me. One of them made a joke about whether my nipple piercings counted as a concealed weapon I asked them about phase scanning and what fast Fourier Transform they were using but they clearly had no idea how the tech worked.

When I was scanned at heathrow I saw the image, it was somewhat distorted - so anyone worried that people are going to be leering over them needn't worry! They really aren't that clear - it's not like looking at a photo of someone with no clothes on! BTW I was young when I was pulled out of the queue... Hmmm...!

On the selection thing - I'm sure it is random - however that is separate to the metal detectors. I am certain that the metal detectors in airports aren't set to go off randomly, which is what the OP asserts.

It's very odd to misrepresent an OP so absolutely and consistently.

Eurochick was told by an airport official that the way random selection is ensured is by means of a late beep emitted randomly by the metal detector. This means that selection is not discriminatory. Widgeon works for the DoT and can't officially confirm that Eurochick was told the truth, but seems to be implying that indeed she was. I have been trying to find out how the selection is made, and so I have been asking questions of Eurochick and Widgeon, by repeating what Eurochick in particular said she was told by an airport official.

No she didn't.

She said that the metal detector works as it should, and that the people working the other machine make it go beep to let the metal detector operators know who should be sent for a further scan. Whether that is true or not, I don't know. It would have to be a different sort of beep, or have a different light flash, or something, so that the operators would know whether they needed to ask the person to take keys, belt off etc or whether they were to go over to the other scanner.

She most definitely did not say that the metal detector is set to go off randomly.

The idea that the metal detector is "rigged" in some way seems paranoid to me. And ties in with the rest of your posts TBH.

You are reading what you want to read, but really, you are exhibiting paranoia and anxiety. Your posts sound to me like someone having an anxiety attack.

I do hope you are OK. And seriousuly, your DD will be fine. Not that you will listen to me, but still.

Of course the random beep is different from any sound which indicates metal. Duh. The idea of a metal detector being rigged is indeed ridiculous, and is your idea, no-one else's.

I do believe that parents have a duty to protect their children from unnecessary doses of radiation delivered by people who have absolutely no interest in the health or wellbeing of children, as do several other posters on this thread. You may not feel obliged to protect your own children, if you have any, but there is no need to be so rude to a mother who does.

I love body scanners. So much better than groping pat downs. I let my kids walk through them no bother. I can't wait till all airports have them.

OK, I get it now. It's you who suffer from anxiety and are projecting. I'm pushing it right back.

Hire a private plane...you will then not be scanned. Simples.

Yes I do suffer from anxiety as it goes. Which is why when I see someone suffering from an irrational fear I wonder if they are suffering from an anxiety disorder. My fear is not to do with scans, radiation or technology, but I know it is irrational. Your fear is to do with scans, radiation and technology, and it is not rational, but you can't see it. Every single person on this thread has told you that your risk assessment is cockeyed, you should think about whether it is more likely that you (one person) are being irrational, or whether all of your respondents are. Surely you can see that the former is more likely.

Your mumsnetting needs some improvement as well.

"You may not feel obliged to protect your own children" should be followed by a passive aggressive smiley, thus:

You may not feel obliged to protect your own children

HTH

Sorry OP - you need to get a grip. Your PFB will no doubt go to Uni and put herself in the position of all sorts of worse risks than this.

My 7 yo broke her wrist her 2 weeks ago and has had a whole host of xrays, I had to go behind the screen as they are "dangerous" don't you know....Does that mean I should not have allowed them to do it?

I'm with lachesis.

I would rather my DD went through a scanner than had the body pat. Potential emotional trauma and all that.

Yes, people who don't need to be exposed to radiation for medical reasons do have to go behind a screen to protect them while someone else is X-rayed. That's why dentists and dental nurses are always ducking behind a screen. So how come some posters - but by no means all - are arguing that radiation is of no consequence to children?

The point is that if your dc need a medical X-ray, of course you give the go-ahead. But why would you give the go-ahead to an X-ray which is not medically necessary?

Because, intermittentrain, it's necessary for other reasons. Security reasons. I don't much fancy my DC being on a plane which is blown up.

And you are worrying about something that might never happen. I had "issues" when dd was born. I worried about plane crashes and crashes and me falling down the stairs etc. My HV advice was that if you are SO anxious that it stops you living your life, and doing normal things(to include foreign travel) , then you have a PROBLEM and should seek advice.

Relax as it has already been pointed out you are over reacting.
Airport scanners = v. Low dose of radiation , far higher concentrations in everyday life or even higher in medical x-rays
I've had every part of my body x-rayed many bits several times over and I even had my neck x-rayed whilst pregnant. Yes I had it for medical reasons but it's for monitoring rather than diagnosis and i've been through the actual risks of the medical x-rays with my dr (& again with my doc DH) and even for me they aren't worrying. My DH also gets exposure as they use x-rays at work to do certain procedures - again far higher doses than your daughter would be exposed to even with a lifetime of trips to France.
Radiation and cancer are big scary words and I think people panic when they here them but they are not the dangers that you should be worrying about in your Childs life. If you can't step back and take a sensible view on stuff like this your going to spoil her trip and eventually her experience of life.

Hear not here - sorry, I blame the phone

Damn I think my monitor is emitting a high dosage of paranoia along with its usual amount of electromagnetic radiation... I've just read all this thread for the first time and I'm forced to conclude that the OP is actually a potential terrorist trying to social engineer people to find out the best way to bypass airport security!

FFS. For the last time. Medical x-rays are of a completely different strength to airport scanner x-rays. Medical x-rays are, in fact, so much stronger than airport scanner x-rays that the only thing they really have in common is the word "x-ray".

X-ray is just the name we give to a specific part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes visible light, radio waves, infrared, microwaves, ultraviolet light and gamma rays. All just different words for different parts of the same thing. As a species we have been exposed to the electromagnetic spectrum for literally millions of years and are actually quite resistant to any harm from it.

The radiation your daughter will be exposed to on a flying airplane are, in fact, a different kettle of fish. It's largely ionized particles of matter from the solar wind which get channeled into our atmosphere by the Earth's magnetic field. Although we still call exposure to these particles 'radiation' it's unrelated to x-rays.

The most scary form of radiation is nuclear radiation. Some is man-made in power stations and weopans, a lot more is naturally occurring from rocks. This kind of radiation is completely different again.

Think of the word "radiation" as being a catch-all term, a bit like the word "cat". It might encompass your soppy and much-loved family pet, or a rampaging lion. Airport scanners are definitely at the family pet end of things.

I did a degree in nuclear and astrophysics, so would be happy to explain the differences properly if you like (the above is just a simplistic go at showing how different the different types are).

That's a really helpful post, Cinnabar. I like simple analagies for scientific stuff.

The "random beep" is pretty obvious. It's used to indicate when to do a random pat-down. The beeps for the metal detector picking up metal, and for indicating a random search are quite different - the light sequence on the indicator lights at the top of the arch is also different. I'm surprised that this isn't common knowledge.

As I said before, my only experience with the Rapiscan units was during the 2004 LGW trial when it was quite obvious that selection was not random - people were being pulled out of the queue before main security and the arch, put through the Rapiscan, and then allowed to jump the rest of the security queue.

Oh, and what CinnibarRed said too.

True story: MRI scans used to be called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance scans - in fact it's still called NMR in non-medical fields.

They had to change the name to the innocuous-sounding 'Magnetic Resonance Imaging' in the medical field though, because of the scary NUCLEAR word.

So would you be happier if we referred to airport X-ray scanners as 'Nanometre Wave Scanners'?

By, the way, this is what you look like to the operators of a Rapiscan.