TSA's mm-Wave Body Scanner Breaks Diabetic Teen's $10K Insulin Pump 811
OverTheGeicoE writes "Savannah Barry, a Colorado teenager, was returning home from a conference in Salt Lake City. She is a diabetic and wears an insulin pump to control her insulin levels 24/7. She carries documentation of her condition to assist screeners, who usually give her a pat-down search. This time the screeners listened to her story, read her doctor's letter, and forced her to go through a millimeter-wave body scanner anyway. The insulin pump stopped working correctly, and of course, she was subjected to an invasive manual search. 'My life is pretty much in their hands when I go through a body scan with my insulin pump on,' she says. She wants TSA screeners to have more training. Was this a predictable outcome, considering that no one outside TSA has access to millimeter-wave scanners for testing? Would oversight from the FDA or FCC prevent similar incidents from happening in the future?"
EMC compliance (Score:5, Informative)
However, there aren't regulations regarding immunity to mm-wave and THz scanners, and certainly not at the intensities these devices use. I suspect that, if you were to test a broad range of existing medical products, many of them would fail, because many of them have mm-scale electrical features (especially, circuit board traces) that would be highly susceptible.
RTFM (Score:4, Informative)
I'm rather surprised that the TSA doesn't (appear) to have a manual to deal with known issues like insulin pumps, joint prostheses, etc. I wouldn't expect rank and file workers to know the answer to everything but there should be a way to look stuff up.
Being rude, however, is absolutely never appropriate. Even if you think the person is the next 'medical device bomber' being professional and polite should always be required.
I would recommend not signing that (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know if it is a real petition or not, but what I do know is it is a real SPAM list. Ever since signing it, they've been bombarding me with shit asking for money and their opt out doesn't seem to want to opt out.
I am more than a little annoyed.
Re:The war on terror is over (Score:5, Informative)
The war on terror will never be over as long as the TSA is around. Radiation bombardment? Groping children? Sounds like Al-qaida has outsourced overseas.
Re:forced? (Score:3, Informative)
A better word than forced would be 'coerced.' You NEVER have to get in their unsafe scanners. You can ALWAYS opt out.
Re:I would recommend not signing that (Score:4, Informative)
Wish I had points to mod you up more. I've been bombarded with Ron Paul/Dudley Brown/etc after signing that crap. So annoying.
Re:EMC compliance (Score:4, Informative)
According to wikipedia ( I know I know ) Salt Lake City uses MM wave and not backscatter. Either way they microwaved and damaged a piece of medical equipment after assuring the user that it was perfectly save for that equipment. Unlike an implanted medical device the insulin pump would be susceptible to MM scans.
Re:EMC compliance (Score:5, Informative)
From an electrical point of view, many medical devices are simply to sensitive to be made immune to induced interference. The noise will have to affect them some how. It is just a matter of how big the noise source is (magnitude), the frequency of the noise source (Hz), and what geometry it sits relative to the medical device (coupling.)
Obviously, the TSA has found a big enough noise source.
In particular, the difficulty with mm-wave interference is that it can induce noise directly onto the geometries of integrated circuits and thin-film devices. The only way to guard against the problem would be to heavily shield the chips in question. Maybe it is time for medical devices to start using radiation-hardened integrated circuits. Radiation hardened circuits are designed to withstand short and intense blasts of EMI, including high-frequency EMI sources.
Re:forced? (Score:5, Informative)
Ummm, go to any beach in Europe and knock yourself out.
We Americans are diseased in the head in many ways.
Re:EMC compliance (Score:5, Informative)
Re:EMC compliance (Score:5, Informative)
I did RF compliance and sensor design for two insulin pumps. An insulin pump is considered a Class 2 medical device, which means that it is an acceptable to stop delivering insulin and alert the user in case of a failure. The user would then rely on manual delivery until the fault cleared.
A Class 3 would be required to continue delivering therapy (and announce the error) in a single fault situation. This is reserved for devices where a manual fail-over isn't a safe option.
Re:new slogan (Score:5, Informative)
Re:new slogan (Score:5, Informative)
First, there was absolutely no need for her to pass through any sort of scanner, as is evidenced by her previous flights, when she produced the documentation and was given a pat-down search instead.
Second, the circuitry wasn't designed for this sort of radiation, since it's never encountered outside a lab - as even the summary makes clear.
Third, the scanners routinely emit a lot more radiation than the makers claim.
Re:new slogan (Score:5, Informative)
I guess completely ignoring the fact that she was passed through a scanner that emitted radiation escaped both you and the author of TFA.
Or, perhaps you just don't give a fuck.
I'm diabetic, and my wife is. The reason for an insulin pump is because self-monitored injections can no longer keep up with the endocrine system. This young girl is not using a pump for convenience, especially not one that costs $10k. She is using it because it is critical for her survival.
Downplaying the risks, and the obvious unknown of these body scanners which fuck if anyone knows whether or how they really work, just makes you look like the most incredible god-damn asshole on the planet.
Just thought I'd mention that. These body scanners are FUCKING SECURITY THEATER that are ADMITTED TO NOT WORK.
Scanners gotta go. I do not fly anymore and I will not fly anymore until they are gone.
Re:new slogan (Score:5, Informative)
Type I diabetes is caused by the autoimmune destruction of the pancreatic islet cells which produce insulin. It has nothing to do with corn syrup or the FDA.
Re:new slogan (Score:5, Informative)
FROM THE ARTICLE:
Are people just too fucking lazy to even read before they open their big mouths?
Not that easy (Score:4, Informative)
I believe insulin pumps are worn externally and not surgically inserted
Yes, indeed. You need to have physical access to the device to change the insuline supply.
and it should be a very small matter to take one off to get through a screening
it's not trivial to temporarily remove one and put it back. As the device is indeed external and the insuline has to be delivered in the blood flow, you might guess that there are sterile needls involved and similar. not something that is easy to improvise in a security line. also, between shutdown and restart of the device once re-attached, there's also risk of manipulation errors.
So either:
- the doctor make sure the patient is properly educated and able to remove / re-attach the device (she's 16, but even younger kids can have Type 1 diabetes, and might not be able to do the whole procedure without parents supervision).
- the doctor provides all the necessary equipment to remove and re-inject the needle (bio-hasard box for used sharp object where to discard previous needle, sterile swipes, new steril needles, steril bandages, etc.)
- the doctor provides all the necessary documentation so the patient get proprer clearance to carry around the equipement past the security check, including the pointy needles.
Or:
- the doctors just write a letter saying that it's just better to "opt out" of the scanner (as she has the right to do any way).
or even for the entire flight.
Getting disconnected from the pump for prolonged periods of time without proper medical supervision isn't what's best for the patient's health, as the girl explains hefself in the video.
Removing the pump and relying on syringes for insuline, basically amount to a switch of medication, including an overlap period where the body still cointains leftovers from the previous type of therapy and new drugs are injected (or at least a completely different new therapy plan has to be followed). Such switches might require medical supervision.
It should be possible to design a pump whose on-baord computer is able to calculate and print out recommandations how to continue from that point on with a classical syringe). But it's just much more easy to recommand "opting out".
Re:new slogan (Score:5, Informative)
As far as the "more radiation on the plane than in the scanner" hogwash, that is a more-or-less apples to apples comparison with the X-ray scanner -- not the MW scanner. First, what are the power levels at which the X-ray scanners and MW scanners operate? Are they comparable? I don't know, and I suspect neither does the commenter from the TFA. Therefore, that argument is invalid without more information. Second, I'm not a physicist, but my understanding is that X-rays have a lot more in common with cosmic rays (what you are exposed to in an airplane) than either of those forms of radiation have in common with microwaves (what she was actually exposed to). Therefore, saying that microwaves are safe for insulin pumps because the cosmic rays at altitude don't affect the insulin pump is a lot like saying UV-B is safe for skin because visible light doesn't cause either skin cancer or sunburn. They operate at different wavelengths, thus they have different effects.
Re:new slogan (Score:5, Informative)
WHAT 'screening in the 70's? Hell, as late as 1968, you could walk onto the tarmac, board a commuter flight, and buy your ticket on the plane. This was going on during riots in major American cities, militant groups screaming armed revolution and having regular shootouts with the cops, and hijackings were common enough that a skit on a national comedy show had a guy come into an airliner cockpit waving a gun screaming "This plane is going to Chicago!", and when he's informed it's already going to Chicago, claims "I was on this flight last week, and we ended up in Havana!"
All that was done was, they started placing a couple armed air marshals on board the most hijacked flights. No screenings. No patdowns. Yeah, they xrayed your luggage, but that was about it. Hell, they'd even let you smoke during the flight.
Effectiveness (Score:4, Informative)
>ADMITTED TO NOT WORK
Documentation:
Ben Wallace, a former employee of one of the company's manufacturing the scanner technology, announced on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "...in all the testing that we undertook, it was unlikely that it (the airport scanner) would have picked up the current explosive devices being used by al-Qaeda" and that "... it wasn't very good and it wasn't that easy to detect liquids and plastics unless they were very solid plastics (Airport, 2010)."
Re:new slogan (Score:4, Informative)
Then in 1972, somebody brought and explosive device onto the plane. Fortunatly they were able to land the plane and evac. A k9 unit was brought in, and the found the bomb with 15 or so minutes left. There were three incidents in 1973
Why you think hijacking aren't worth preventing is beyond me.
X-rays, metal detectors, and pat downs when the detector alerted where happening in 1969.
They became mandatory in 73(74?) by Nixon. It pretty much stop the hi-jacking and deaths. Yes, people where killed during hijackings.
"Hell, they'd even let you smoke during the flight."
I sure as hell don't miss breathing other peoples poison.
you want to blame someone? start with Jack Graham.
The TSA is overboard, but don't go on like safety was fine, It wasn't.