More TSA radiation problems

Makes me want to fly more often. [Link]

• TSA employees have identified cancer clusters allegedly linked to radiation exposure while operating body scanners and other screening technology. However, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters – safety devices that would warn of radiation exposure.
• The DHS has publicly mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST “affirmed the safety” of full body scanners. NIST stated that the Institute did not, in fact, test full body scanners for safety, and that the Institute does not do product testing.
• A Johns Hopkins University study revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit.”
• A NIST study warns airport screeners to avoid standing next to full body scanners.

In other words, pretty much everything I suspected.

As far as the cancer clusters go, based on the dates, it’s unlikely to be the new pornoscanners.  It is more likely that they had a malfunctioning luggage scanner, and it’s killing everyone who was near it for more than a few hours.  What they have beenhiding is that they were warned not to let employees stand around this thing, and avoided giving them the safety equipment that would show if something was malfunctioning and putting them in danger.

But even if it was one of the luggage scanners — a known technology, in use for decades, with long long service histories — that was malfunctioning this horribly, how in the hell can we trust them with a new, unstudied technology?  If they are this incompetent with the known stuff, how can we trust them with the known unknowns?

I also find it amusing (as in, horrifying) that they have redacted the John Hopkins recommended limit on how many scans you can have a year.  Because we don’t need to know if we are too frequent a flier.  After all, it’s only more radiation on top of the radiation you already get and can’t avoid while flying.