DENTISTS IN BRITAIN have condemned an MP’s call to test child migrants’ ages via their teeth.
Conservative MP David Davies told BBC Radio Wales (clip here via The Independent) that many people entering Britain ‘look a lot older than 18′.
“Looking at the photographs, some of the people coming in look a lot older than 18,” he said.
“There’s one there with lines around his eyes who looks older than I am, quite frankly.”
He went on to say that the British government have already tested refugees and had found many had lied about their ages.
He called for dental x-rays to be expanded to child migrants coming from Calais, the first of which arrived in the UK this week.
The British Dental Association (BDA) said Davies’ demands were “inappropriate and unethical”.
Sky News quotes an association spokesperson as saying:
“We are vigorously opposed to the use of dental X-rays to determine whether asylum seekers have reached 18.
“It’s not only an inaccurate method for assessing age, but it is both inappropriate and unethical to take radiographs of people when there is no health benefit for them.
“X-rays taken for a clinically justified reason must not be used for another purpose without the patient’s informed consent, without coercion and in full knowledge of how the radiograph will be used and by whom.”
However, Davies doubled down on his comments, telling Radio 4:
“It’s no good Lily Allen turning up with tears in her eyes and all the rest of it – we need to be quite hard-nosed here.”
The UK government has pledged to resettle 3,000 immigrants.
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