TSA Full-Body Scans Would Not Pass Hospital IRB Reviews

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=3191 ^ | William M. Briggs

[mattstat]

Zzzzaapp! Some angry photons have just been blasted off toward your body, scouting for “contraband.” In the process of the search, these energetic massless particles will kick the crap out of some of your body’s cells, disrupting them in their duties. Some of these cells will be so desolated by the experience that they will lose their lust for life and will die. Others might be so incensed that they will turn rogue (i.e. cancerous).

But it’s OK, because Janet “I’m Not A Scientist” Napolitano has said it’s OK. Your submitting yourself to an invasive X-ray probe is a matter of security, and to this benighted female, nothing is more important. Except perhaps her reputation.

Passengers should understand that Napolitano has thought about these matters; therefore, they don’t need to. “It’s all about everybody recognising their role,” she said. Your role is to submit!

An IRB is an Institutional Review Board, a group of physicians, scientists, lawyers, ethicists, and members of the community which meets periodically to review and approve or disapprove research projects submitted by white-coated men and women. IRBs are charged with balancing the risks of proposed studies with their possible benefits. If the IRB judges the risks outweigh the benefits, the research is denied.

I have sat on multiple IRBs which have rejected, and rejected in some cases vociferously, experiments of the kind the TSA is now engaged in. IRBs are extremely wary of dosing people with X-rays (particularly CAT scans) unless the benefit is substantial. The theory IRBs use is invariably: the less exposure to X-rays the better...

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Someone should ask Big Sis if she thinks these would be approved to be used multiple times on patients who traveled frequently - like, say, a pilot.

[SMARTY]

Just curiously, wouldn’t the scanner/procedure which the TAS has selected have had to undergo review by an IRB in its own developmental history? Presumably, the Government would select from only those products/procedures already approved for this application.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

In editing, I left out “by the FDA”.

[BuffaloJack]

I’m waiting for someone to demand a Search Warrant before scanning and groping.

[LibertyRocks]

What is scary is how quickly one can veer off into dangerous conspiracy theory territory when one contemplates the government’s motivation for subjecting the public to such experiments in Radiation, or experiments in the psychological effects of Sexual Abuse (It’s your pick, which would you rather deal with?).

With all the changes they are trying to effect in our country, combined with all of their known sentiments (Ayers, Wright, Farrakhan, Alinsky, et al...) it makes one wonder if this could be an exercise in Health-care (physical and mental), or Population Control?

And, if they are offended because some become “paranoid” of the government? Well, they’ve brought it on themselves at this point... Or, IS that the point? Because they really keep pushing us around an awful lot...

[Reagan69]

Just went thru tsp security at st Pete Clearwater airport. I freaking love this airport.

The nicest tsa people. Down home feel. No xray. No grope!

[wendy1946]

I'll say it again... If those youtube videos showing the new generation of binary explosives are real, then there is no way to protect an aircraft from such a thing. There is no such thing as a technological solution to a political problem.

What is needed is a credible threat of massive retaliation against the slammite world for any and all terrorist acts by ANY slammite actors.

[ZX12R]

And, if they are offended because some become “paranoid” of the government? Well, they’ve brought it on themselves at this point... Or, IS that the point? Because they really keep pushing us around an awful lot...

Yesterday, I was thinking that perhaps they are really trying to create domestic terrorists, with constant violations or erosions of rights. And it was a serious thought.

[Diogenesis]

"Who cares what the risks are?
There are investments in, and money to made from, this.
It is better to have one hundred radiation-induced cancers in every child in America
than to disturb or inconvenience or separate out
even one single foreign Moslem or undocumented alien.
Just as we have exempted them from ObamaCARE and its burdensome taxes,
our beloved Moslems will forever be excused and protected
from TSA-imposed invasive breast, genital, rectal and scar examinations, and
from the nude pictures we assemble, store, and distribute
of American scum."

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

In clinical trials that require radiographic-type imaging to track lesion progression or response, the number of times subjects are to be imaged (whether by X-ray, CT, or MRI) is a huge concern.

The pharmas and the doctors don’t want subjects undergoing these more than a few times a year.

I guess it just sucks if you have to travel by plane half a dozen times a year.

Who would have thought that part of your new occupational hazard for traveling for work would be increased risk for cancer brought on by scans?

As an aside, we all know that the tyrants like Osama used planes because he loathes the fact that so many Americans can afford “that obscene and decadent luxury.”

And we also know that leftist tyrants in America like Obammie the Commie use these situations to further their tyrannical control over our lives.

You KNOW all leftists just love seeing Americans being treated like this and love even MORE the fact that Americans will still traveling by air, thereby returning this luxury to its rightful owners: THE RULING CLASS.

[N. Theknow]

TSA T&A

[6SJ7]

I'll say it again... If those youtube videos showing the new generation of binary explosives are real, then there is no way to protect an aircraft from such a thing. There is no such thing as a technological solution to a political problem.

Not to mention, the 911 terrorists didn't bring any weapons thru the checkpoint. Their weapons had already been placed on the planes by ground crews working with the terrorists.

[MortMan]

No. The IRB is a medical safety board, not a device development board.

The device developers and Fed Gov did not have to subject these devices to any form of medical review, AFAIK.

[SumProVita]

It is precisely THIS which prompted me to state categorically that I will never go through one of these scanners. I will always opt out.

I trust nothing that is government-run anyway....because of the vast numbers of incompetent people they often hire.

[AndyJackson]

how quickly one can veer off into dangerous conspiracy theory territory when one contemplates the government’s motivation

The unfortunate part is that stupid bureaucrats have a long history of doing these sorts of things thinking that they are " scientists," like the Army subjecting soldiers in formation to the direct radiation from an atomic bomb to see what would happen (we already knew from accidents and from Japan what happened when you were exposed to large doses of radiation) or the AEC injecting prisoners with plutonium.

[JimRed]

X-rays can cause sterility. Since the “rich” are the ones who fly, this is a blatant attempt to sterilize the rich! < /sarc >

[JimRed]

What is needed is a credible threat of massive retaliation against the slammite world for any and all terrorist acts by ANY slammite actors.

Mecca, Medina and Qom should have been reduced to glassed over smoking craters by 9/12/01, but it's not too late...or maybe it is, until 1/20/2013.

[LibertyRocks]

The old saying, “We must learn from history” would instruct us not to dismiss some of the dangers inherent in a powerful centralized government run by some people with very bad ideas.

[GraceG]

Since the TSA is obsessed with higher and highter resolution scans, why not make a scanner that scans at an atomic level by taking a person apart atom by atom and re-assembling them, you know in case they have bombs sewn into their DNA. And since we are doing that why not put the disassembly part in one airport and the re-assembly part in another airport. Thanks TSA, you just invented a teleporter that gropes a person by their molecules....