This article is confusingly written to obscure the fact that there's no story.<p>Some field tests showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected, but the TSA has determined it's because some field testers, who were conducting 10 tests at a time, reported the sum of the individual radiation levels instead of the average.<p>Apparently this is due to a confusing field test form. So the TSA has fixed the form.<p>I mean, I hate the TSA too, but come on...
This is so last year's question for the TSA.<p>The new question is why the mainstream press isn't repeatedly asking the TSA why they are suddenly appearing in train and bus stations as well as randomly shutting down bridges for car searches? It's happened often yet few know about it.
It's strange that these aren't required to undergo some sort of more standard and professional safety testing. I get that they don't need quite the same level of reliability as medical scanners, but the level of radiation safety should be similar, or perhaps actually higher, since many more people are routinely exposed to them. Could you get a device with the amount of ad-hoc testing that's been done here even into your local doctor's office? My guess is no.<p>I'm not particularly confident in what I've found of the failure analysis and testing, either. For example, the devices appear to work by scanning a beam rapidly across one's body. If the beam got stuck in one place, it would have to shut off extremely rapidly to avoid an unhealthy dose of radiation being concentrated in one place. Is it possible for the beam to get stuck? Are there fail-safes that would cut off the beam, and how fast do they operate, and how reliable are they? As far as I can tell, miscellaneous doctors and medical-device folks have been asking these sorts of questions, but there aren't very professional looking tests and analyses available to answer them.
"The Therac-25 was a radiation therapy machine produced by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited .. It was involved in at least six accidents between 1985 and 1987, in which patients were given massive overdoses of radiation, approximately 100 times the intended dose"<p><a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Therac-25" rel="nofollow">https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Therac-25</a>
Clarification, not bungling the actual scans, but bungling tests <i>of</i> the scanners, and by bungling tests of the scanners; not testing incorrectly, but omitting a single critical step.<p>Standard procedure is to take ten consecutive measures and then average the results (sum and divide). Their test staff have simply missed the final step on that list.<p>Raises competence questions, yes, but nothing to get bent out of shape about in terms of real world effects in isolation.
I bet you get more radiation during your flight. Still, if this fuels irrational public fear of scanners such that it outweighs irrational public fear of terrorism, I'll consider it a good thing.