Washington (CNN) -- Radiation from airport body scanners
penetrates organs beneath the skin but at low doses that meet
national standards, according to a study by Marquette
University's Department of Biomedical Engineering. But the
study's author, professor Taly Gilat-Schmidt, said the research
does not answer the biggest question on travelers' minds: Are
scanners safe? She said more independent research is needed. The
Marquette study subjected government and vendor data to
sophisticated computer modeling to estimate the radiation doses
travelers receive when they are scanned by backscatter machines,
one of two types of imagers used to detect weapons at security
checkpoints. The Transportation Security Administration has
maintained that the machines are safe, exposing travelers to
about the same radiation they receive by flying about two
minutes at cruising altitude. A passenger would have to receive
more than 17,000 screenings in a year -- about 47 screenings a
day, 365 days a year -- to exceed government st