TSA To Retest Radiation Recorded From Full-Body Scanners

The Transportation Security Administration. (TSA) is blaming math mistakes for elevated radiation levels recorded on some full-body scanners during routine maintenance at airports around the country.


Still, the controversial full-body scanners will be retested out of "an abundance of caution to reassure the public," TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball says. The tests will be finished by the end of the month, and the results will be released "as they are completed," according to the agency's website.

The move comes as the TSA – under pressure from lawmakers – released the results of testing that was ordered last December. The TSA insisted the elevated levels were due to calculation errors and that the machines, used for screening passengers at airport security, were safe.

Back in 2008, a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the TSA had bungled the detection of radiation emitted from baggage X-ray machines and in fact the machines had radiation levels well beyond what regulations allowed. The review also found that the TSA's machines did not have all of the required safety features in place.

Lawmakers have been calling on the TSA to ensure the safety of full-body scanners to travelers' health. Scientists have also questioned whether the scanners pose a cancer risk.

US Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) released a statement yesterday saying that the TSA's latest findings are "unacceptable."

The agency, Collins wrote, "has repeatedly assured me that the machines that emit radiation do not pose a health risk. Nonetheless, if TSA contractors reporting on the radiation levels have done such a poor job, how can airline passengers and crew have confidence in the data used by the TSA to reassure the public?"

She said the records released Friday "included gross errors about radiation emissions. That is completely unacceptable when it comes to monitoring radiation."

U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz told USA Today that he was as troubled by the information posted by the TSA. Chaffetz (R-Utah) chairs a House oversight subcommittee on national security and has sponsored legislation to limit the use of full-body scans.

Chaffetz called the TSA's record-keeping haphazard and the agency's oversight paltry, telling the newspaper, "It is totally unacceptable to be bumbling such critical tasks."

He added, "These people are supposed to be protecting us against terrorists."