Source: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/201206Baby.htm

Baby sent though airport X-ray machine

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Comment: Though explained away as an "accident," the guilty until proven
innocent, 100% suspicion at all times, authoritarian absurdness
environment that has been created in airports most likely led this
Spanish woman simply to assume that she had to x-ray her baby in the
interests of security.

LOS ANGELES -- A woman going through security at Los Angeles
International Airport put her month-old grandson into a plastic bin
intended for carry-on items and slid it into an X-ray machine.

The early Saturday accident -- bizarre but not unprecedented -- caught
airport workers by surprise, even though the security line was not busy
at the time, officials said.

A screener watching the machine's monitor immediately noticed the
outline of a baby and pulled the bin backward on the conveyor belt. The
infant was taken to Centinela Hospital, where doctors determined that he
did not receive a dangerous dose of radiation.

Aviation officials, who declined to release the 56-year-old woman's
name, said she spoke Spanish and apparently did not understand English.
She initially did not want the baby transported to a hospital, but
security officials called paramedics and insisted that the child be
examined by a doctor.

The grandmother and the child were subsequently allowed to board an
Alaska Airlines flight to Mexico City.

The incident drew attention to whether aviation officials are staffing
often-busy security checkpoints adequately enough to prevent such an
accident. And it raised questions about the danger of X-rays used to
pick out suspicious metal shapes in passenger bags, given the medical
community's warnings that even low amounts of radiation that can build
up over a lifetime.

"Rather than focus on the radiation dose, which is a small amount, we
need to focus on why this happened, so it doesn't happen again," said
Dr. James Borgstede, a clinical professor of radiology at the University
of Colorado and president of the American College of Radiology. "Human
beings weren't meant to go through those things."

In the several seconds the baby spent in the machine, the doctor added,
he was exposed to as much radiation as he would naturally get from
cosmic rays -- or high energy from outer space -- in a day.

Security experts said the incident underscored a more widespread concern
about the screening process at LAX and other airports.

"The screeners are still reporting that they're being pushed," said
Brian Sullivan, a retired Federal Aviation Administration security
agent. "If a baby can get through, what the hell else can get through?"

Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security
Administration, which manages LAX screeners, said the agency does not
have enough workers to constantly stand at tables in front of the
screeners to coach passengers on what should or should not be placed
through X-ray machines.

But in some cases, airlines contract with private companies to staff the
tables and assist travelers. The TSA will also occasionally put
employees at the tables if extra workers are available.

TSA screeners often ask passengers to remove their coats, shoes, laptops
and other items and put them into the bins, Melendez said. But they
cannot observe everything people put there, because they must monitor
screening equipment, he said.

Still, he said the TSA works hard to educate passengers about what
carry-on objects require screening and that travelers must take
responsibility for knowing these rules.

"There's an obligation on the traveler to use some common sense," said
Larry Fetters, the TSA's federal security director at LAX. "If they
don't understand, they should ask somebody. If they ask us, we are
generally able to find someone who speaks that language and assist
them."

On its Web site, the TSA posts extensive tips for travelers, including a
section titled "Traveling With Children." Listed among the items is a
sentence that reads: "Never leave babies in an infant carrier while it
goes through the X-ray machine."

There are also signs posted in English and Spanish at ticket counters
and near security checkpoints warning passengers that they must put cell
phones, pagers, car keys and other metal objects into bins that go
through X-ray machines.

Airport and TSA officials said because the incident is so rare, and
because the health risk is so low, they did not plan to issue specific
warnings to passengers to not put children through X-ray machines.

"This was an innocent mistake by an obviously inexperienced traveler,"
said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for
the city's airport agency. "This is only the second time in nearly 20
years that anyone can recall a traveler mistakenly putting an infant
through an airport X-ray machine. Since then LAX has served more than 1
billion travelers without an incident of this type."

In 1988, an infant in a car seat went through an X-ray machine at LAX
Terminal 4.

wow! thats... pretty shoking, how can someone even think of putting a
baby in a bin like that..

Gross, some people have yogurt for brains.