body scanners and pregnant women

[Fun Police]

hi all,
my wife will be asked to submit to a full body scan in philadelphia tomorrow and she is in her first trimester. is it safe for her? if not, can she refuse and still fly?
thanks in advance

[SeenItAll]

My understanding is that she can refuse the full body scan, but will have to accept a full body frisk as the alternative. Otherwise, no fly.

[Pandabear]

Don't know about the safety but at least you will know if its a boy or girl!

[Dairyground]

The principle of the scanners is that the radiation does not penetrate flesh, so she should be OK.

As an alternative, if she does not want to be radiated or groped, she could offer to strip off provided she was not touched.

[Shack37]

US anger at invasive airport security measures - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8137872/US-anger-at-invasive-airport-security-measures.html)


This from the Telegraph

[shogan1977]

Assessment of comparative ionising radiation doses from the use of rapiscan secure 1000 x-ray backscatter security scanner (http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/security/aviation/airport/securityscanners/securityscanner/)

[Donkey497]

As the equivalent dose is orders of magnitude less than she is exposing herself to by flying in the first place............

Let us know how it went.

[biggles49]

These scanner produce ionizing radiation. No body knows how much is too much and unfortunately how little is truly safe. The radiation is of a for considered dangerous to medical imaging workers called back scatter radiation . It delivers it's energy into the cell and may cause damage. It is very dangerous for rapidly dividing cells ie developing fetus .
In my opinion not safe for anyone. Any radiation should be avoided unless medically necessary, and that goes double for pregnant women.
While tissues on the surface will be most at risk 1 photon at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you could have problems.
Your eyes are at risk every exposure to this stuff. They fit the criteria perfectly. Surface tissue and rapidly dividing cells exposed to unregulated doses of ionizing radiation.