Screening programme evaluation applied to airport security
BMJ 2007; 335 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39419.662998.BE (Published 20 December 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;335:1290
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It is probably true that airport security in its present form is not
an efficient screening measure. However, one important difference exists
between screening for disease in individual patients and screening for,
say, explosives in airports. While one missed cancer on screening can
cause the loss of at the most, one life, the number of potential lives
lost per missed screening at airports can be substantially larger. This
has to be factored into any attempts at evaluation of the process.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Airport security is a serious subject and this paper makes a useful
contribution. One additional element worth considering is that the
disease in focus, terrorist killing, can become critical during and as a
result of the screening phase. This is relatively unusual, I suspect. If
a suicide bomber wishes to cause death and disruption to air travel, there
is actually a trade-off, with more deaths from a plane bombed in the air
but more disruption, potentially, from a bomb on the ground at an airport.
This raises the interesting security issue that to be really safe, the
screening tests should take place in an isolation zone, where the effects
of going critical in screening can be contained. So airport security
really needs pre-airport, isolated steel and concrete cells through which
passengers pass one at a time for screening. While this sounds either
extreme or absurd, in practice it is the only realistic way to stop a
determined, ambulant bomber from harming many other people. But it is not
going to happen so I guess we have to face up to the fact that the risk of
a bomb may always be present and the risk of injury may not be
significantly reduced by screening. We need some screening to create the
illusion of security but we need to remember it is an illusion and keep
our spending on it at a suitable level, given the likely effects.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Dates
It worries me that what appears to be a well-written article has such
an elementary mistake as getting the date wrong when 56 people died in
London in July 2005. (2nd paragraph).
The date was the 7th and not the 5th of July.
Competing interests:
The view expressed is my own and not necessarily that of my employer.
Competing interests: No competing interests