You may have missed some of the recent stories about TSA's bogus claims re the safety of their scanners.
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/20/aol-investigation-no-proof-tsa-scanners-are-safe/"The TSA ticks off a litany of groups that it says are involved with determining and ensuring the safety of the controversial devices, including:
* The Food and Drug Administration
* The U.S. Army Public Health Command
* Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
* The Health Physics Society
However, AOL News has found that those organizations say they have no responsibility for the continuing safety of the alternative to TSA's grope. Further, the Homeland Security agency refuses to release exposure data to top non-TSA safety experts eager to evaluate any risk."
As the linked article details, all of these groups said they have no responsibility to monitor the safety of those passing through airport scanners.
THE FDA: Specifically, the FDA has NOT field-tested any of these scanners OR the manufacturer and has no legal authority to require owners (such as TSA) of non-medical x-ray devices to provide access for routine testing.
THE ARMY: it states it sent two person teams to "survey" scanners at only three airports, Boston, LA and Cincinnati. That was all that the TSA asked them to do. The Army noted that none of the machines it examined had the required warning labels.
JOHN HOPINS APPLIED PHYSICS LAB: Its work did nothing to ensure the consistent safety of those exposed to the radiation from the scanners.
"APL's role was to measure radiation coming off the body scanners to verify that it fell within
standards. We were testing equipment and in no way determined its safety to humans," Helen Worth, head of public affairs for the Johns Hopkins lab, told AOL News.
"Many news articles have said we declared the equipment to be safe, but that was not what we were tasked to do," she added. Moreover, the study said APL scientists were unable to test a ready-for-TSA scanner at their lab because the manufacturer would not supply one. Instead, the tests were performed on a scanner cobbled together from spare parts in manufacturer Rapiscan Systems' California warehouse.
"The system evaluated may be configured different than the system deployed to the operational environment," the report said. It added that the APL found two areas in the testing mock-up where escaping radiation could cause exposure to the public that exceeded the annual safe limits."
THE HEALTH PHYSICS SOCIETY: states that it did not and does not monitor the safety of TSA's devices -- only that if the devices operate as promised, safety should not be an issue, Howard Dickson, the Society's immediate past president, told AOL News.
In a related article, we learn how inadequate is the training received by TSA employees operating said scanners, particularly as compared to other countries' operators.
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/20/expert-scanner-training-more-intense-outside-of-us/
Headline: Expert: Scanner Training More Intense Outside of US
The full-body scanners have either been deployed, or are being seriously considered for use, in Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Nigeria, India, South Africa and most of the European Union. In those countries, the personnel are extensively trained and understand radiation, how the X-ray devices work and what can happen if the calibrations are wrong, according to an international radiation safety expert.
The Government Accountability Office told Congress that the training for the average TSA monitor is about a week and a half in classrooms. And even then, investigators found that trainees often did not have time to complete the reading for the courses, it said. "The staff is encouraged to simply sign off on the materials and receive credit for taking the courses without providing evidence of reading or understanding the information," the report said.
Also, according to that report, the entire process seems hodgepodge. "The agency does not have documented standard processes to update training based on current information, such as the results of officer testing," it said. "While TSA officials explained they have a process in place to guide training enhancements, they acknowledged the process is informal and not documented."
The international consultant also said that TSA personnel at the scanners don't even wear radiation detection devices.
Next time you're in the emergency room or at a nuclear power plant, you'll see that everyone involved with radioactive material wears a small dosimeter to monitor how much radiation he or she is receiving while working near the source.
AOL News asked the TSA why its personnel don't wear the radiation detectors. The TSA has yet to answer.
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