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Sunday, March 13, 2011

Who needs nuclear meltdowns when you have the TSA?
Posted by Jill | 2:38 PM
Remember when they told us that TSA x-ray scanners at airports were perfectly safe and that the radiation they exposed one to was practically undetectable?

WRONG:

The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

The TSA says that the records reflect math mistakes and that all the machines are safe. Indeed, even the highest readings listed on some of the records — the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes — appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.

Even so, the TSA has ordered the new tests out of "an abundance of caution to reassure the public," spokesman Nicholas Kimball says. The tests will be finished by the end of the month, and the results will be released "as they are completed," the agency said on its website.

TSA officials have repeatedly assured the public and lawmakers that the machines have passed all inspections. The agency's review of maintenance reports, launched Dec. 10, came only after USA TODAY and lawmakers called for the release of the records late last year.

The agency posted reports Friday from 127 X-ray-emitting devices on its website and said it would continue to release results from maintenance tests for the approximately 4,500 X-ray devices at airports nationwide. Those devices include machines that examine checked luggage. Of the reports posted, about a third showed some sort of error, Kimball said.

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3 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Do the TSA people actually grasp that being close to defective Xray machines can be hazardous to their reproductive health?

Those people need a union badly.
3/13/11, 2:49 PM  
Blogger John Myste said...
O Crap!
3/13/11, 7:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
On the other hand, most of those TSA people shouldn't reproduce anyway.
3/14/11, 9:02 AM  
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