The USA-TSA (Transportation Safety Authority) has deployed 486 scanners in 78 airports in the United States, with an estimated 1000 scanners to be deployed by the end of 2011.  The doses of ionizing radiation emitted by these backscatter x-ray scans is exceedingly low. Based on what is known about the scanners, passengers should not fear going through the scans for health reasons, as the risks are truly trivial. Discomfort with the backscatter scanners exists in part because of health and privacy concerns, herein the former are very well  ilustrated, the later are from other issues…

 
**  Airport Full Body Screening: what is the risk?
       Arch Intern Med. Published online March 28, 2011
      Pratik Mehta and Rebecca Smith-Bindman 
    Department of Radiology and   Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San    Francisco