It really baffles me that hearing an official response of “You don’t need that cheap meter to make sure you’re not getting unhealthy levels of radiation/lead/asbestos/etc, you’re perfectly fine because we say so!” doesn’t set off alarm bells.
I guess it\s just how TSA accountability is so non-existent the higher ups can screw over the workers just as much as they can screw over passengers.
Wait. They’re actually called Rapiscans?
Man, you couldn’t write this…
The radiation dose from these scanners may be small but it still contributes to the total dose received by everybody who has to be close to them. Dose meters shouldn’t be too expensive. I wonder if the workers could pay for their own?
Amazon has them for five bucks a pop, if you don’t mind them being sold by – no joke – ACME APPROVED. I don’t see how the supervisors could object to something that small being carried by the workers, since they would be able to find the blasted things. Stick one in your wallet and go about your day.
The dose from a dental X-ray is small too, but the hygenist still leaves the room, because small times 1000 isn’t small any more.
Yeah there shouldn’t be an issue about dose meters for occupational exposure.
This surprises me not in the least. We have always seen the Stasi …er … Palace Guard … er … SAVAK … er … Secret Police … er … well, suffice to say that secret(ive) organizations with no outside oversight have historically a tendency to lose respect for anyone outside of their organization, and then behave badly.
I know, right? it’s like the last decade has been written by Paul Verhoven.
A few years ago, when these things first came out, word on the street was that at least some TSA employees had been told that wearing their own could be a firing offense.
The Science Friday link from that conversation is 404-ing now but I found the article moved to http://www.sciencefriday.com/blogs/09/13/2010/airport-screeners-denied-radiation-badges.html
Wallet? Stick it on your scrotum, where you really need to know the exposure level.
No, wear it near your thyroid. That’s where Rad techs generally wear them and where the hospital physicist instructed our ER staff to wear them.
&
http://www.radsafe.pitt.edu/dosimetry/
But don’t take leave them in your car, bc the radiation received in your car will skew the results, which are supposed to be ONLY the radiation received at work.
You’re right about the writing bit! Rapiscan Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of OSI Systems, the CEO of which is Deepak Chopra!
True, but I don’t care about my thyroid NEARLY as much as I care about my balls. Seriously, that is no joke!
Chopra gives me the creeps, thank you for the additional information.
It seems like everyone here, both passengers and workers, are getting screwed.
The whole point of the scanners is that they’re able to penetrate soft and hard tissue. Your entire body will be getting roughly the same dose, mitigated only by the distance from the emitter.
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