Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-Up

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) says it's got evidence that the Department of Homeland Security has failed to properly evaluate the level of risk from airport body scanners.

In a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the DHS, EPIC says it's obtained documents concerning the scanners' radiation risks, including agency emails, radiation studies, memoranda of agreement concerning radiation testing programs and the results of some radiation tests.

EPIC says that TSA staff have been concerned that a large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease. But the documents show that the TSA's response was simply to tell them: "Because TSA systems comply with federal regulations, the increased risk of developing radiation-induced cancer in later life is extremely small, no greater than other risks people routinely accept in their daily lives".

"One document set reveals that even after TSA employees identified cancer clusters possibly linked to radiation exposure, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters - safety devices that could assess the level of radiation exposure," says EPIC.

"Another document indicates that the DHS mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST 'affirmed the safety' of full body scanners."

In fact, says EPIC, the documents show that NIST disputed this assertion and pointed out that the it had not actually tested the devices. Indeed, one NIST study actaully warns airport screeners to avoid standing next to full body scanners.

Further, says EPIC, the documents include a Johns Hopkins University study which revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the General Public Dose Limit.

EPIc has been fighting the use of body scanners in airports since July 2009, when it filed its suit calling for the program to be suspended.

http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/56899-tsa-ignored-warnings-on-cancer-cluster


Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 28, 2011

Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,” EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg said.

In an email sent to Heather Callahan (PDF), deputy federal security director at Boston Logan International Airport, union representatives express their concern about “TSA Boston’s growing number of TSOs working here that have thus far been diagnosed with cancer.”

Of course, if TSA workers who are merely standing near the scanners are already developing cancer, frequent flyers are also putting themselves in harm’s way by standing directly inside the radiation-firing machines.

http://www.infowars.com/cancer-surges-in-body-scanner-operators-tsa-launches-cover-up/