Dentists welcome clarity as Home Office rules out X-rays for asylum seekers

The dentists’ professional body had condemned suggestions that X-rays could be used to offer definitive proof on whether children from the Calais refugee camp are under 18 years of age, describing the tests as ineffective, inappropriate and unethical.

Wisdom teeth can erupt from the age of 10, and do not appear in some adults. These X-rays can therefore only provide an estimate of a patient’s age range – while requiring them to undergo a medical procedure without their informed consent and without any planned clinical benefit.

The BDA has engaged on the issue for over a decade, and has resisted calls from successive governments to make this practice mainstream.

Judith Husband, chair of the BDA’s Education, Ethics and the Dental Team Working Group said:

“We’re pleased the Home Office has finally ruled out the use of dental X-rays on child asylum seekers. It draws a line under 10 years in which ministers have kept flirting with an eye catching, but ultimately ineffective, policy.