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I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say this is poorly worded. TSA officers also aren't permitted to hygrometers on the job. Why? Because there's no poi

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say this is poorly worded. TSA officers also aren't permitted to hygrometers on the job. Why? Because there's no point to wearing a hygrometer as a TSA officer. Unlike with the dosimeter, that doesn't need to be spelled out. That doesn't mean they aren't allowed to perform dosimeter readings at all, it just means it's not acceptable to carry this equipment around all the time. > While the NORMAL dosage is of course well below any level that would make a dosimeter useful, a dose from a malfunction or bent/broken/missing shield panel could easily exceed dosimeter detection thresholds. Do you actually know that these could be harmful, or is it just a suspicion?

munk-a 7y ago
TSA officers may not be offered hygrometers, but I doubt if there is anything explicitly preventing them from carrying their own hygrometer - actively preventing officers from carrying dosimeters seems more likely to be tied to prevent any long term lawsuits. We get bombarded by all sorts of radiation throughout the day, describing a malignant skin mole to a back-scatter vs. the sun isn't something you could do without evidence. The collection of such evidence is specifically being prevented. So I'd assume this is more like coal miner operators in the 1800s planning ahead to protect themselves from the eventual outbreak of black lung.
toss1 7y ago
I won't give them the benefit of the doubt on poor wording (they have plenty of time and resources to get it right). As far as we know, there is no general ban on wearing instrumentation of any other on the job, unless it is somehow clumsy and would interfere with their duties or the appearance of their uniform. In contrast, the simplest dosimeter is typically a very small patch of photographic paper in an envelope opaque to visual light but transparent to harder radiation (towards the gamma end of the spectrum). It is like an inch square, or like a typical nametag, easily worn in a shirt pocket, no more visible to anyone else than a credit card in the shirt pocket. The only plausible reason to forbid this is to prevent any kind of whistleblower event. Of course I do not know the actual levels of radiation inside each machine or all of their possible failure modes. However, we do know 1) high-energy radiation dosage is cumlulative -- each day's dose adds up, so if you have 1/100th of a critical dose each day in a workzone, in less than four months, you should be banned from that work zone. This is the way it works in many facilities dealing with radiation sources, and everyone wears dosimeters which are checked, and people are reassigned when the total dosage exceeds the prescribed level. 2) There are medical limits on how many x-ray and CT-Scan procedures are allowed for patients, again due to the cumulative nature of radiation exposure. Even with the very low-doses of modern machines, these are a concern and are tracked (I know this from the experiences of several close family members). 3) The TSA machines do produce sufficient radiation in their beam to fog ASA800 and higher film. This is definitely a non-trivial dose. Tho obviously not lethal in a single dose (e.g., if you rode through the machine), it is significant. If an interior shielding panel is bent or somehow mis-installed during manufacturing, maintenance, or repair, it is entirely plausible that people working regularly in the area of the leaking radiation could be overexposed. So, no, this is not even close to mere suspicion or Luddite "ooh radiation bad" -- and yes, we do know that these could be harmful, especially over extended periods. I hope you are not an employer with that attitude.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  > As far as we know, there is no general ban on wearing instrumentation of any other on the job, unless it is somehow clumsy and would interfere with their duties or the appearance of their uniform. Who is "we"? Aren't you just pleading ignorance here? What do really you know about what TSA agents can and can't wear? Anything can "interfere" with the appearance of a uniform, including a "small photographic patch". > The only plausible reason to forbid this is to prevent any kind of whistleblower event. Then why do they do allow third party monitoring? Having further looked into this, the page you posted is outdated and they ended up handing out dosimeters themselves: https://www.livescience.com/36079-airport-security-screening-personal-radiation-monitoring.html https://www.livescience.com/36079-airport-security-screening... The result was negative. Of course you can't prove a negative, maybe there's radiation somewhere else where they didn't look... > 2) There are medical limits on how many x-ray and CT-Scan procedures are allowed for patients, again due to the cumulative nature of radiation exposure. > 3) The TSA machines do produce sufficient radiation in their beam to fog ASA800 and higher film. This is definitely a non-trivial dose. According to: https://www.radiologybusiness.com/topics/business-intelligence/tsa-tests-radiation-scanners-acceptable-levels https://www.radiologybusiness.com/topics/business-intelligen... " TSA claims the “backscatter machines” cannot produce more than 0.005 millirem of radiation per scan. In comparison, the agency says, a chest x-ray exposes patients to 10 millirem of radiation, and the maximum recommended exposure to radiation from man-made sources is 100 millirem per year." That would mean that if you had a machine that was completely unshielded, you would have to perform 2000 scans to get the equivalent of a chest X-Ray. Compare that to the radiation exposure of your average flight attendant.
  - toss1 7y ago
    >> Anything can "interfere" with the appearance of a uniform, including a "small photographic patch". Not if it is inside your pocket. Get real. >> Then why do they do allow third party monitoring? Obviously because they can control when it is done as well as how the results are distributed, or not distributed. >> " TSA claims the “backscatter machines” cannot produce more than 0.005 millirem of radiation per scan. In comparison, the agency says, a chest x-ray exposes patients to 10 millirem of radiation, and the maximum recommended exposure to radiation from man-made sources is 100 millirem per year." >> That would mean that if you had a machine that was completely unshielded, you would have to perform 2000 scans to get the equivalent of a chest X-Ray 1) this assumes that the "0.005 millirem per scan" is the total output of the machine, including all radiation absorbed by the lensing & shielding. We do not know if this figure is the total generation output, or only the total amount put to the target & receiving sensors. 2) one thing we do know is that the radiation will NOT be scattered evenly; there will be lobes and hotspots and cold spots. 3) even if we assume .005millirem/scan, at the rate of two/minute, that's 1000 minutes to get a chest x-ray, or 16 hours, basically two work days. In LESS THAN ONE MONTH, they are over the yearly dose. More importantly, this is only counting the backscatter machines that are specifically designed for super-low doses as they are specifically irradating people. This does NOT look at the luggage scanners, either for carry-ons or for checked luggage, which likely have much higher outputs. Finally, even if your arguments are correct and there is truly no risk, there should be no problem at all for officers to wear their own dosimeters -- the results would merely be putting their minds at ease that they are not getting exposed. Thus, we are back to the only reason to prevent officers from wearing dosimeters is an attempt to control the information and prevent whistleblowers and/or lawsuits. Again, I sincerely hope you are not an employer with this attitude.

munk-a 7y ago

TSA officers may not be offered hygrometers, but I doubt if there is anything explicitly preventing them from carrying their own hygrometer - actively preventing officers from carrying dosimeters seems more likely to be tied to prevent any long term lawsuits. We get bombarded by all sorts of radiation throughout the day, describing a malignant skin mole to a back-scatter vs. the sun isn't something you could do without evidence. The collection of such evidence is specifically being prevented. So I'd assume this is more like coal miner operators in the 1800s planning ahead to protect themselves from the eventual outbreak of black lung.

toss1 7y ago

I won't give them the benefit of the doubt on poor wording (they have plenty of time and resources to get it right). As far as we know, there is no general ban on wearing instrumentation of any other on the job, unless it is somehow clumsy and would interfere with their duties or the appearance of their uniform. In contrast, the simplest dosimeter is typically a very small patch of photographic paper in an envelope opaque to visual light but transparent to harder radiation (towards the gamma end of the spectrum). It is like an inch square, or like a typical nametag, easily worn in a shirt pocket, no more visible to anyone else than a credit card in the shirt pocket. The only plausible reason to forbid this is to prevent any kind of whistleblower event. Of course I do not know the actual levels of radiation inside each machine or all of their possible failure modes. However, we do know 1) high-energy radiation dosage is cumlulative -- each day's dose adds up, so if you have 1/100th of a critical dose each day in a workzone, in less than four months, you should be banned from that work zone. This is the way it works in many facilities dealing with radiation sources, and everyone wears dosimeters which are checked, and people are reassigned when the total dosage exceeds the prescribed level. 2) There are medical limits on how many x-ray and CT-Scan procedures are allowed for patients, again due to the cumulative nature of radiation exposure. Even with the very low-doses of modern machines, these are a concern and are tracked (I know this from the experiences of several close family members). 3) The TSA machines do produce sufficient radiation in their beam to fog ASA800 and higher film. This is definitely a non-trivial dose. Tho obviously not lethal in a single dose (e.g., if you rode through the machine), it is significant. If an interior shielding panel is bent or somehow mis-installed during manufacturing, maintenance, or repair, it is entirely plausible that people working regularly in the area of the leaking radiation could be overexposed. So, no, this is not even close to mere suspicion or Luddite "ooh radiation bad" -- and yes, we do know that these could be harmful, especially over extended periods. I hope you are not an employer with that attitude.

gridlockd 7y ago
> As far as we know, there is no general ban on wearing instrumentation of any other on the job, unless it is somehow clumsy and would interfere with their duties or the appearance of their uniform. Who is "we"? Aren't you just pleading ignorance here? What do really you know about what TSA agents can and can't wear? Anything can "interfere" with the appearance of a uniform, including a "small photographic patch". > The only plausible reason to forbid this is to prevent any kind of whistleblower event. Then why do they do allow third party monitoring? Having further looked into this, the page you posted is outdated and they ended up handing out dosimeters themselves: https://www.livescience.com/36079-airport-security-screening-personal-radiation-monitoring.html https://www.livescience.com/36079-airport-security-screening... The result was negative. Of course you can't prove a negative, maybe there's radiation somewhere else where they didn't look... > 2) There are medical limits on how many x-ray and CT-Scan procedures are allowed for patients, again due to the cumulative nature of radiation exposure. > 3) The TSA machines do produce sufficient radiation in their beam to fog ASA800 and higher film. This is definitely a non-trivial dose. According to: https://www.radiologybusiness.com/topics/business-intelligence/tsa-tests-radiation-scanners-acceptable-levels https://www.radiologybusiness.com/topics/business-intelligen... " TSA claims the “backscatter machines” cannot produce more than 0.005 millirem of radiation per scan. In comparison, the agency says, a chest x-ray exposes patients to 10 millirem of radiation, and the maximum recommended exposure to radiation from man-made sources is 100 millirem per year." That would mean that if you had a machine that was completely unshielded, you would have to perform 2000 scans to get the equivalent of a chest X-Ray. Compare that to the radiation exposure of your average flight attendant.
- toss1 7y ago
  >> Anything can "interfere" with the appearance of a uniform, including a "small photographic patch". Not if it is inside your pocket. Get real. >> Then why do they do allow third party monitoring? Obviously because they can control when it is done as well as how the results are distributed, or not distributed. >> " TSA claims the “backscatter machines” cannot produce more than 0.005 millirem of radiation per scan. In comparison, the agency says, a chest x-ray exposes patients to 10 millirem of radiation, and the maximum recommended exposure to radiation from man-made sources is 100 millirem per year." >> That would mean that if you had a machine that was completely unshielded, you would have to perform 2000 scans to get the equivalent of a chest X-Ray 1) this assumes that the "0.005 millirem per scan" is the total output of the machine, including all radiation absorbed by the lensing & shielding. We do not know if this figure is the total generation output, or only the total amount put to the target & receiving sensors. 2) one thing we do know is that the radiation will NOT be scattered evenly; there will be lobes and hotspots and cold spots. 3) even if we assume .005millirem/scan, at the rate of two/minute, that's 1000 minutes to get a chest x-ray, or 16 hours, basically two work days. In LESS THAN ONE MONTH, they are over the yearly dose. More importantly, this is only counting the backscatter machines that are specifically designed for super-low doses as they are specifically irradating people. This does NOT look at the luggage scanners, either for carry-ons or for checked luggage, which likely have much higher outputs. Finally, even if your arguments are correct and there is truly no risk, there should be no problem at all for officers to wear their own dosimeters -- the results would merely be putting their minds at ease that they are not getting exposed. Thus, we are back to the only reason to prevent officers from wearing dosimeters is an attempt to control the information and prevent whistleblowers and/or lawsuits. Again, I sincerely hope you are not an employer with this attitude.