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Cancer Cluster Possibly Found Among TSA Workers
OverTheGeicoE writes "TSA employees at Logan International Airport believe they have identified a cancer cluster in their ranks, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and released by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. They have requested dosimetry to counter 'TSA's improperly non-monitored radiation threat.' So far, at least, they have not received it. The documents also reveal a paper from Johns Hopkins that essentially questions whether it is even safe to stand near an operating scanner, let alone inside one. Also, the National Institute of Standards and Technology says that the Dept. of Homeland Security 'mischaracterized' their work by telling USA Today that NIST affirmed the safety of the scanners when in fact NIST does not do product safety testing and never tested a scanner for safety."
This is a classic government mistake, trying to eliminate a threat in one area causes needless problems in another area. Ever since 9/11 the airport security people have gotten a blank check. TSA seems willing to buy any new scanner invented, safety tests will be done later if ever. It's been a long time since we've heard of an airplane disruption on a domestic flight... do we really need to up the specs on this technology?
If you can't beat the system from without, beat it from within. We should throw as much support as possible behind this - get some lawyers in there, get some reporters over there, do whatever we can.
Not trolling but after what they did to this 95 year old woman http://news.travel.aol.com/2011/06/26/tsa-pats-down-elderly-woman-removes-adult-diaper-video/ I hope they all get cancer and die.
Shame on you TSA and shame on you President Obama for letting this happen to AMERICA.
But you see, security devices aren't regulated. Medical devices are regulated, but security devices aren't medical devices. Says so right on the label. Just take our word for it that this is safe.
I suppose it's time to get comfortable with the idea of intimate relations with TSA screeners. It wouldn't be so bad but for the lack of choice in who does the screening, the lack of cuddling afterwards and total absence of a commitment. It just makes the whole ordeal seem so tawdry.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Even if you bought into the bullshit about the scanners being safe (despite little or no testing), doesn't it seem a little obvious that something was up when they wouldn't let TSA employees were those little radiation badges that change color to indicate when you've had too much exposure?
Not sure if trolling...
A cancer cluster is a geographic or demographic grouping in which cancer is found to occur at higher than expected (or "normal") levels.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Someone posted about working as a TSA employee on here a few days ago. He said he worked there for a few months. Most of the TSA employees don't enjoy their jobs and get no pleasure out of screwing with passengers.
A job is a job. It's unskilled work that will pay the bills, so people are going to take it if they can get it. If you understand that TSA employees probably hate their job as much as you hate them doing it, show them some respect and they'll be nice to you.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Same here, but unfortunately a day will come when I am forced to fly, and the TSA knows it. The TSA knows that people cannot simply refuse to fly when their employers insist upon it, or when there is a family emergency, or when they want to travel across an ocean. That is why the TSA gets away with these attacks on our rights: there is no realistic chance of an effective boycott on air travel.
Palm trees and 8
I'm pretty sure that respect is one of those things that you have to earn...
We need random TSA screenings in and out of congress and senate.
No exceptions, everyone could be a danger to the legislative branch, the best we can do is a fast line for senators and congressmen but the shoes have to come off.
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
As a frequent flyer it is fairly easy to avoid the scanners. Many smaller airports don't have them, and they are too slow for the majority of larger ones and are often turned off or majority of people waved around. Over time you learn where the scanners will not be used. The sad part is most TSA agents are normal people that need a job. They are forced to stand near devices that may be safe if operating properly, but over time normal wear and tear will increase the exposure. As is normal with a slow acting, long term effect problem, owned by the government, it won't be acknowledged until the majority of victims are dead. Like nuclear submarines, have the TSA agents where dosimeter badges every day for a year. Lets see if there is a problem.
This never should have started.
There is no principle of justice, morality, or reason that will stop the American government from harming its people and the rest of the world in order to benefit its politicians and business associates. The government is too corrupted and is beyond salvation. The only way to get it to do anything is by force. The only way to achieve that force is to raise awareness.
It sucks, but that's how it works.
Given that most TSA staff appear to be ill-educated mouthbreathers whose primary diet consists of cigarettes, Coke and Funyuns, shouldn't they consider general lifestyle factors as well?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Ask yourself this question: Would you rather have Freedom or Security?
I choose freedom. Unfortunately I can't choose often enough because the majority in the US vote for Security, then act surprised when they lose Freedom.
While I have no doubt these machines are the bane of our personal freedom, and may even be dangerous its also possible that cancer clusters show up randomly. They do in areas near cellphone towers, unrelated to radiation, simply because clusters happen randomly too.
It's predictable though that no one likes the goons. The tragedy is they won't have any hate left over for former DHS head Michael Chertoff who got them into the mess by lobbying for this scanner boondoggle. Of course the fact he made millions off them is completely irrelevant.
"Every traveler is a critical partner in TSA's efforts to keep our skies safe," Administrator John Pistole, said last fall. "And I know and appreciate that the vast majority of Americans recognize and respect the important work we do."
Your respect is noted.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
No, it's a group of people born in late June or the first two-thirds of July.
Living increases the risk of dying.
This wouldn't do much since Congress doesn't have to approve wars anymore...
Question: if the beam doesn't hit the dosimeter, will it read anything at all? As in, if the spot bounces off the inside of the machine and always hits the agent's calf because of where he's standing, and he gets skin cancer in his calf, would the dosimeter have detected that at all? Or is the reflection a wider beam than that?
Who are these people that do not love to live in a Police State? The last few I have seen where in Libia and Egypt. Perhaps you think of a few individual Americans. The majority I see are people waving the flag and singing the the national anthem just like they learned at school.
The beginning of indoctrination not to doubt government. Best way to do that is when they are young.
(I have Karma to burn)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Exactly. And is the main danger of the machines.
Overall body exposure is very, very low when operating correctly, but if the beam stops and/or the operator repeatedly rescans isolated areas / uses higher resolution, the radiation exposure can be far higher.
A related issue is that much of the radiation energy is concentrated in the skin - that alone raises safety questions.
And how do the minimally trained TSA employees, let alone passengers, know for sure the machines are operating correctly? They don't, and hence avoiding such scans is prudent, especially for people who regularly fly.
No it wouldn't, and that's completely immoral. People are not slaves to their parents' occupations.
It could bring the whole TSA down if a few people get cancer.
Or not ... because the taxpayer will be funding it and they've always got *trillions* to spare.
No sig today...
Precisely. If every senator and congressthing and DHS/TSA employee (right up to the department heads) were required to undergo full "enhanced screening" including grope and scan every single time they entered or exited their offices, I think they might sing a different tune. Hell, we should make a cable TV channel: all politician pat-downs, all the time, where the viewers on an Internet site vote for who gets a strip search and who gets a scan and who has to go back and do it all again. As it is, the privileged few don't have to put up with what they're forcing everyone else to submit to.
During World War II, in North Africa, the German General Erwin Rommel ate the exact same rations and amounts as his men, walked when they walked, etc. That way he knew fist-hand what he was requiring of them. He also demanded that his soldiery behave well when they came into contact with the locals. He had more respect from his men AND the men of the opposing armies than just about any other military figure. Our beloved leaders need to learn more lessons from Rommel, and fewer lessons from Heydrich.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
They conducted a survey. The question was "Are you for or against terrorism?" It shows an overwhelming support of all their actions to prevent attacks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If asked whether you prefer a pat-down, just say "Hell yeah, that's why I fly, else I wouldn't have any sex life anymore!"
If you can't avoid being miserable, at least make sure that you're not the only one suffering.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What was done to that woman was atrocious. However condamning the rank and file TSA employees does nothing; they're just trying to make ends meet like everybody else, and in general they too loath what they have to do as a part of their job. People at the top that are responsible for all these nonsense are utterly indifferent to what happens, and until they're held accountable, nothing changes.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Seriously, how likely is it that cancer would be completely uniformly distributed?
When you get a geographic/profession based cluster, you can usually hypothesize that it's an environmental cause, a.k.a. the machines generating radiation that they stand next to. So yes, you are completely correct, but your logic is completely incorrect.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
This never should have started.
There is no principle of justice, morality, or reason that will stop the American government from harming its people and the rest of the world in order to benefit its politicians and business associates.
I think you're confused.
This is a fairly typical fear reaction. Politicians and government bodies feel that they need to be seen to be acting in order to avoid a future event, resulting in questions about their inaction. It's not some kind of conspiracy. It's the same kind of fear response that results in laws that say that if you've been arrested for having sex in public, you have to register yourself as a threat to your neighbors' children.
Tell your boss he can find some flunky to do the flying, 'cause you're not doing it.
And there's the flaw. The seat was still filled.
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Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
Some decades ago, X-ray machines were common. So common that you could go into a department store and get an X-ray to see how well your new shoes fit. Doctors routinely used continuous X-ray scanners (fluoroscopes) with dosages much higher and for much longer durations.
Once people started to suspect that X-rays could cause cancer, it was straightforward to find out. Not trivial, but straightforward. Follow a lot of people and look for a correlation between exposure and cancer. Lo and behold, there is an effect.
Once the effects were measured we could compare risks. One of the results was that the risk due to undiagnosed dental problems is far greater than the risk of cancer from an X-ray, so dental X-rays are a good trade-off.
Fast forward to modern times and we have scanners. There is no evidence to suggest that these devices are safe, or unsafe. The manufacturer has a *model* of what should happen with the dosages, and the consensus of opinion is that the devices are safe... except that the result is based on the model, not evidence. Pick different assumptions to get a different model and there may be a risk.
Some assumptions about the new technology are: a) The manufacturer is correctly reporting dosage, b) The radiation is blocked by the skin (or in reverse, the effects will concentrate in the skin), c) Exposures below a certain threshold pose no risk (versus, any exposure causes proportional risk)
To put this in perspective, it's instructional to look at the history of MRI machines. Despite the fact that there is no known mechanism for magnetic fields interacting with the body and causing problems (notwithstanding metal implants &c), the FDA cautiously required progressive testing of the machines before they were deployed for common use.
I approve of this sort of thing. It's one thing to believe that magnetic fields have no effect, but it's important to test things out before you try them on, for example, pregnant women.
In summary, there has been no testing of the TSA scanners whatsoever. Their entire claim to safety rests on their belief that they know how the radiation will affect living tissue, but they cannot back that up with evidence.
They are not scientists, and they have side-stepped the normal medical safety certification process that we take for granted.
Scientists make conclusions based on evidence, politicians make conclusions based on models.
Funnily enough, the machines are perfectly safe. It's the pat down that causes cancer.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
but wouldn't you think that someone that was the former head of a government security agency might know a bit about the needs of that agency and be able to start a company that can provide for those needs?
Yes, I know, it's common practice, but profiting from an industry that you have or had official power over is textbook corruption. Participating in a bidding process where you have special inside knowledge is corruption, and it doesn't get more special or inside than "I was head of the agency last week."
Chertoff belongs in jail.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I'm in Alaska, if I want to visit the rest of the US without spending 4-6 days in a car or 3-4 days on a boat each way, I have to fly.
If I want to get out of the goddamned dark this winter, I have to fly.
That's a bit of a worry. I used to have to wear a dosimeter just because I worked in the same building as an industrial x-ray machine. The operators had a wear a dosimeter even though the machine was behind two brick walls with a foot of sand filling the space between the walls. You don't just throw the monitoring gear away because you think the sheilding is good enough, you keep it to confirm it is good enough. There were real time sensors with alarms as well but the role of the dosimeter badges was to monitor low level exposure to the wearer over time.
The older dosimeters were really just a bit of unexposed film and the density when it was developed at the end of the month would give you the level of exposure. That's simple and dirt cheap technology which does the job.
Tell your boss he can find some flunky to do the flying, 'cause you're not doing it.
And there's the flaw. The seat was still filled.
Plus, you've got no job. I cannot imagine a realistic situation when you could say something like that to someone who was your boss. If you can be replaced by a "flunky" you're not exactly senior in the company, and contrary to everyone's belief on slashdot, you are not a precious, irreplaceable asset to the company, you're a cog in the machine.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There is a basic level of respect you should show to everyone, until they do something to make you stop. At the most fundamental you should have respect for human rights, but I prefer to go a bit further try to at least assume people are somewhat rational beings capable of a basic level of understanding.
One thing I have noticed is that in Japanese culture the default position is to assume the other person is genuine and well-intentioned, where as in the UK and US it is to assume they are not to be trusted until proven otherwise. The Japanese way is much more pleasant for everyone, but does rely on a great deal of social pressure to confirm to high standards. Pressure per-se isn't a bad thing, e.g. disdain for criminals or anti-social behaviour, but for some reason we don't use it as much and instead rely on laws and enforcement.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC