TSA in violation of OSHA standards

[guardian]

Why don't TSA employees have to wear radiation monitoring badges even though the operate and near radiation equipment all day long???

[w8liftinglady]

1. good question.I was a nurse in radiology,and we wore one

they were checked every month for exposure ratio.Why AREN'T these inspectors provided the same care?

[KansDem]

2. I asked a similar question yesterday...

I worked as an orderly in the x-ray department of a hospital for three years. I always wore a radiation monitoring badge. If we got too much, we were "laid off" for awhile.

Everyone working in that department who operated the equipment had to be certified or licensed. X-ray techs had two years of college and one year of internship. Radiologists were MDs with specialized training in radiology.

But my question is: are any of the TSA staff licensed or certified to operate x-ray equipment? I received a number of responses but no confirmation...

[CreekDog]

4. look at my message below...hand operated xrays the TSA uses on casts and limbs

[CreekDog]

3. TSA uses these also (Castscope) X-ray machines that they point at you

no, i'm not kidding.

this is the Tek1984...oops, i mean Tek84. ;)



http://tek84.com/castscope.html

[nykym]

5. Besides the badges

the TSA workers shown on TV are using the same pair of gloves for pat downs - ewwwwwww!

[guardian]

6. Can you say "herpes sores" n/t

[jeff47]

7. Probably depends on the devices

Some of the scanners use "terahertz radiation". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_radiation
Terahertz EM has less energy than visible light. No one has shown any harmful effects induced by low-energy EM (From radio up to visible). The only known effect is heating (ex: microwaves are between radio and visible light). Being cooked is generally detectable by the person before any long-term damage is done.

Other machines use low-powered X-Rays. X-Rays do indeed have enough energy to cause harmful effects. The makers of the machines claim the dose is so low that it isn't dangerous...but nobody's done any long-term studies. So they probably get away with not having badges because the machine isn't putting out a lot of X-Rays - several orders of magnitude lower than a medical X-Ray.

Unfortunately, there isn't a good way to find out which kind of machine you're being subjected to.