Washington (SmartAboutHealth) - There is a great deal of controversy surrounding new full-body scanners that will soon be added to airports in the United States, due to the fact that they may expose people unnecessary levels of harmful radiation.

These new full-body scanners are known as backscatter scanners, and work by sticking someone inside this device that will scan their entire body.

President Barack Obama has seen this as a way to keep airports much safer, and has ordered over 450 of them to be delivered to airports all across the U.S.

The idea behind them is that it will help greatly in regards to detecting potentially harmful weapons and other devices from making it onto airplanes.

Many feared though that this would lead to harmful radiation exposure from standing in the scanners.

Experts in the U.S. though disagree, stating that the exposure to radiation is minimal, with levels of exposure that are too tiny to impact the body.

There has been a lot of concern as of late in regards to airport safety following the attempt to blow up a plane back on December 25, 2009.

Since then, questions have come up about how we can improve security.

It appears that as of right now, the popular choice is to use these backscatter scanners, and according to experts, they are safe.