Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: I'm Radioactive - Watch out for the TSA goons.

This is topic I'm Radioactive - Watch out for the TSA goons. in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-14-2013, 01:43 PM:

Took a nuclear imaging tests on Thursday. They pump you full of a radioactive nuclear isotope and scan you over a few hours to see how your blood is flowing...or not.

Interesting thing is, the lab tech gave me these instructions and a affadavit verifying that I have detectible radioactivity in my person and where to call for confirmation. He said, "But don't let that fool you, if they stop you, you'll be detained for hours...and that's on the subway or around town. I suggest not even trying to fly." "REALLY," sez I, "they are able to detect that little bit of radiation?" Evidently. He said they get about four or five patients a month who get stopped.

He said a patient was walking down the street in the theatre district in NYC and a van drove by her, drove down to the end of the street, then backed up to where she was walking and three guys jumped out and surrounded her. She was 73 yrs old. Another guy went into the subway with a backpack (VERY bad move the tech said). Unfortunately for him, with all the people around him and all the train noise, he didn't understand what the agents were shouting and who they were shouting at and he just kept walking. He was tackled to the ground...the subway ground...yuck. The tech said that if you are flying, you will almost always miss your flight because you will always be detected and then detained while they try to reach the doctors or the lab. You better be traveling when either are opened and not at 10pm on a weekend.

Oh yah, I had to sign a statement that I agree I will not go within 20 feet of pregnant women or any infants, children or teenagers under the age of 17yrs. Makes me feel pretty potent. And I have a mild level -- the half-life of mine is such that it will not be dangerous to anyone by tomorrow, but evidently the residual radiation signature of some types of these isotopes that they use for the thyroid scans containing iodine radioactive isotopes which are able to trigger sensors at airports for as long as 30 days.

Anyone getting stopped needs to report to the SNMMI -- a non-profit org in the medical field that collects the data of such stops with the aim of educating the TSA and various local police forces about how to deal with these human triggers -- evidently there are a lot of us walking around.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-14-2013, 01:59 PM:

Well at least the benefits far outweigh the inconveniences! Err, wait... what are the benefits?

Posted by Paul H. Rayton (Member # 1817) on 07-14-2013, 02:01 PM:

Hey, Frank! Wow! Don't get near any unexposed or undeveloped film, either, or you'll become a new "Phantom Menace"!

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-14-2013, 03:15 PM:

Book your airline tickets now! [evil]

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 07-14-2013, 04:22 PM:

Sound like you've become a nuclear wessel.

AJG

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 07-14-2013, 04:31 PM:

Wow Frank. You must have gotten special treatment. I've had nuclear stress tests where they inject you with radioactive dye and never got any radiation signs to wear when I left the Dr. office. Something of an expensive nuisance, but that was it.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-14-2013, 05:25 PM:

Nuke 'em til they glow, shoot 'em in the dark.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-14-2013, 06:48 PM:

If this is an issue for you, you might ask your doc if there is an alternative. For me, I have a stent in my heart that means I must use an exercise stress test test yearly to renew my pilot medical. While the test you took is an alternative, the exercise stress test is much preferred. (9 minutes or more on the treadmill whill hooked up like John Glenn.)

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-14-2013, 08:36 PM:

Frank, what superpowers do you get with test? [evil]

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 07-15-2013, 08:20 AM:

Sounds like the PET scan I just had. I was hooked up to an IV and they did a bunch of scans, then on the last one, they said (from their control booth) they were injecting the radioactive stuff. They pumped it in and I could feel it flow from my forearm to my shoulder. It was cold because it had been hanging there for about 45 minutes in a freezing cold room. Then I got a whole body scan. They burned a copy of all the scans on a CD for me so I can show off a few organs [Big Grin]

.

Anyway, I asked if my piss would be bright green or glow in the dark, I was disappointed when they said no.(I still had to go home and check right away before it wore off). They didn't give me any warnings, but then they knew the only travelling I was going to do was back and forth to the hospital.

Rick

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-15-2013, 09:52 AM:

Rick, yes it was a PET scan -- actually, in my case they scanned three time, once before the stuff is pumped into me and then they inject some vile stuff that makes you feel like you are running a marathon, at the same time eating the hottest chili peppers on the planet, at the same time being sprayed with capsasin tear-gas all over the body and at the same time having an elephant sitting on your chest. Oh yah, and with wave after wave of nausea and splitting headache too. The doctor kept asking how I was doing -- he's watching a EKG and two other monitors -- John Glenn style, like Louis says -- the ones that BEEP BEEPs every time your heart pumps (it very disconcerting hearing that beeping sound getting slower and slower). I was hoping the doctor could see "how I was doing" by looking at all that hi-tech monitoring equipment a bit more scientifically than just saying, "Hey Bub, how ya doing?"! Finally I say, "Not so good, doc." GREAT. he says.(!?). "You can do it; only 5 five more minutes to go and I'll give you the antidote." Antidote?

Then comes the isotope and that cold chill flowing thru your veins like a ghost just passed over your body, and two more scans an hour apart to see if the heart is still beating and you're not dead yet.

The scan thing was no walk in the park either. They lay you on a freezing metal bed in a flimsy hospital gown you are sure your ass is hanging out the back as it hits the metal that is just about as wide your my butt, no place to rest your arms which she positioned above my head, grabbing each other. "Hold that position, don't move, not talk, breath normally, don't fall asleep," the tech tells me. Don't fall asleep? Yah, because you breath more deeply when you are sleeping....can't have that. Hold that position for 20 minutes. Doesn't sound like a long time, does it? Well of course two minutes after the scan starts and this huge scanning robot thing starts moving inch by inch over you, getting closer and closer (actually pretty neat to watch), you start to itch -- my nose is itching, me ear is itching, I feel a cramp in my foot, then another in my arm. I am thinking, Man, this is unpleasant, but it's only 20 minutes; that's plenty of time to contemplate whether or not this robot scanner has been programmed properly so that it actually knows where my head starts and ends so that it STOPS before it crushes my nose. After all, we know how easy it is for a tech to forget to put in the proper format macro.

I am thinking, when is this tech coming back to tell me it's over and I can move again...it's GOT to be more than 20 minutes and I reeeeally need to move? I notice that if I roll my eyeballs waaaay to the right, I can just see a wall clock in my peripheral vision. I squint (no glasses, of course), and I can see 6 minutes have gone by....and I realize now I also have to pee. If I was allowed to move my jaw, I would have cursed.

Evidently there are a number of different isotopes that they use, depending on what they are looking at, each with a different half-life and each with more or less emissions from your body. I guess that will determine how much they will emphasize the necessity for you to stay away from others and the public detector risk.

Martin, unfortunately no super powers, although I did think it would be fun for me and a few of the stagehands to ride the subway all day and see how many times I could get the detectors to trigger so we could watch the TSA Keystone Cops agents spring into "action." Have my pals capture it on cell phone. Maybe even get it on the 6 o'clock news. Medical Patient Tackled By TSA Agents. The more bad press these guys get the better, although I am glad they have detectors all over the city.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-15-2013, 11:06 AM:

I used to work on the big Chinese New Year parade here in San Francisco.

One year, back around 2002 or 2003, I worked on the parade and then the next day
I was flying out to Phoenix. All of a sudden, as I went through the security screening
at the airport, I started setting off all kinds of alarms. Extra security, & TSA supervisors
were called, and I , and all my belongings were whisked away into a private area.

Why? - - I'll tellya why: My shoes tested positive for explosive residue.

Well, f course they did! I worked on the Chinese friggin' New Years Parade, where
fireworks are constantly going off all along the parade route. I was probably
covered in "explosive residue".

Despite having pictures of the event on my phone & some other documentation,
I was all but strip-searched. They even retreived my checked baggage and
went through every item inside with their 'electronic explosive residue sniffer".

I was eventually 'cleared' and just barely made my flight. But for the next 8 years or so,
every time I flew, I still got singled out for an extra through TSA inspection because
it was still in their computers that I was an "explosive residue carrier" or somthing.

It's only recently that I've been able to fly again without getting hassled.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 07-29-2013, 10:32 AM:

Unfortunately we live in a radio phobic world. The majority of people do not comprehend that our entire planet, the food we eat, and our own bodies are radio active.

The funny thing is people are not scared of toxic chemicals and heavy metals that *never* go away but a radio isotope that will eventually decay throws them in a tizzy! An interesting fact about radio isotopes is the dangerous heavy hitters decay pretty quick. They have short half lives. The stuff you hear about that lasts "millions of years" are generally very low emitters and are not more dangerous than naturally courting material.

Unfortunately this irrational fear of all things radio active has caused us as a world and nation to burn ever increasing amounts of coal to meet our electrical needs. Coal burning produces a deadly mix of toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Coal burning plants emit more radiation into the environment than a nuclear plant during it's normal operation.

We could power our world with clean, efficient nuclear power but politics and protest has set us up to continue to burn coal and gas. Nuclear power has the lowest deaths per terrawatt hour of any other energy source it is even lower than wind and solar.

The natural gas companies would like us to believe that wind and solar will solve our energy and climate change problems because renewables = more nat gas consumption. For every megawatt of wind capacity there is an equal amount of coal or has capacity running in "spinning reserve" mode sodas to not destabilize the grid when these intermittent sources are unavailable.

Sorry for the rant but this story is just another example of irrational radio phobia.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-29-2013, 07:42 PM:

I remember when I was a kid, there was this weekly or maybe it was a monthly science magazine they handed out and there was a spat of issues devoted to a series on the glory of nuclear energy as THE future of supplying all our nation's and finally all the world's energy needs. And although I can't recall much else, I do remember the big oooh....aaaah claim was that uranium is naturally occurring and plentiful and that each little nugget could cause atomic chain reactions that could go on for years and keep emitting abundant energy. The big claim was that with atomic plants, we could produce an never-ending supply of power that it would make electric so cheap there would no longer be the need for electric meters because after the power plants were built and paid for, the electricity would be FREE.

Somehow it didn't quite work out that way.

Sean, you are right -- there's no scarcity of toxic stuff we should be worrying about that's a lot more harmful to us than the radioactivity bugaboo. Hell, sun energy, which is nothing more than a type of radiation, can be just as carcinogenic in the right amounts of exposure as other forms as anyone with skin melanoma will tell you. Thing is, decades of the cold war with all that scary stuff about radioactive fallout, with the worse scenarios constantly fed to us about what would happen if someone (Russia) were to do to us what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- and we all saw THOSE pictures.

Anyone as old as me will remember that there were fallout shelters in every public school with those big radiation symbols and arrows pointing to how to get to the shelter that was going to protect us should an ATOM BOMB drop on our city! People with enough money actually built fall-out shelters in their basements. There were those big army kaky-colored barrels of food stuffs in the basements of the schools where we were all supposed to run and hide if a nuclear bomb were to land on us. We practiced what we needed to do to protect ourselves in the event we didn't have time to get down to the basement fallout shelter. We actually practiced tipping our desks over and hiding under them. The word "irrational" doesn't begin to describe what passed as government intelligence back then.

If we were lucky enough to make it to the shelters in time, we were instructed to stay in there until we got the "all clear" sirens when it was "safe" to come out...presumably after you had spent about 200 or so years eating salteen crackers, processed American "cheese" product and butter -- pounds of it until the outside no longer had radioactivity dripping from it.

Then there was the fact that 90% of all science fiction "B" pictures had radioactivity as the key cause of every giant mutant monster that Hollywood screen writers could conjure up. Also there was wall-to-wall "TEAM" coverage of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, which just stoked the nuclear fire as it were.

None of this made for rational thinking about nuclear radiation in the public's collective mind -- and evidently that thinking has yet to hit its half-life. Which is why no nuclear plants have be put on line in years and the minute there is any talk about building one, it's like announcing that you want to put a day-care center in middle of a pedophilia psych ward.

Posted by Jock Blakley (Member # 6552) on 07-29-2013, 08:50 PM:

quote: Jim Cassedy
Well, f course they did! I worked on the Chinese friggin' New Years Parade, where fireworks are constantly going off all along the parade route. I was probably covered in "explosive residue".

I had a similar experience where I'd visited family on their farm and taken my dog with me. On the way home both the dog (as in, the entire dog) and my shoes came up positive for explosive precursors.

That said I didn't have near as much trouble because we established pretty quickly that it was superphosphate, which in addition to having a use in explosives is a common agricultural fertiliser.

Happily, also, airport security in Australia doesn't know who you are, so I've never had any trouble since.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 07-30-2013, 10:32 AM:

Sean, You're talking about things that everyday people are exposed to. Have you ever been injected via IV with radioactive liquid so that you can be scanned from head to toe for a few hours?

Frank, Hope your PET scan results turned out o.k.

Rick

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-30-2013, 11:31 AM:

With airport security, the fun really starts if you have any films in your luggage.

I was once taken into an interview room and given an interrogation as the result of changing planes in Memphis a few years ago, with a 1,000ft reel of 35mm in my carry-on. I was going to a conference to show the film, which was of a 1938 newsreel (don't worry - it was a safety dupe, not nitrate). Ironically, the customs people when I arrived from Amsterdam barely gave it a second glance, but when I went through the TSA check for the connecting flight, they saw it on the x-ray monitor and pulled me out of the line. They got it into their head that either I was involved in piracy/copyright theft, or was trying to import pornography, or both. The fact that the film was only eight minutes of footage and was labelled with the name and address of a major archive didn't seem to make much difference. Eventually they rang the hotel I told them I was staying at, confirmed that I was actually headed there, and let me go on the strength of that - after I'd missed the plane, of course.

Ironically, if the reel had been nitrate, then if it hadn't been labelled with the appropriate UN hazmat flammable solid sticker, the TSA people would neither have known nor cared about it.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 07-30-2013, 12:50 PM:

Yes, I have had injections of radio active tracers and had CT and PET scans I have also had many dental and medical x-rays. I am not sure what that matters though. There is no reason for people with medically necessary radio isotopes in their system to be treated like suspected criminals. The reason this is occurring is because people have an irrational fear of radiation and radio active material.

Radiation treatments save lives, nuclear imaging helps to diagnose disease and save lives. Instructing people to take such unnecessary precaution and treating them like criminals is a barrier to treatment. Barriers to treatment keep people from receiving life saving treatment.

There are people who are so "against radiation" (which again is silly because us, our world, and the food we eat is all radio active) that they will refuse life saving treatment. I feel that any time someone dies when it could have been prevented is a tragedy. Especially when the same people who will refuse life saving treatment have no problem flying or mountain climbing or doing other things which expose them to more radiation than they would normally encounter.

Frank - I went to a catholic elementary school in an old building in the early 80's we still had fall out shelters in the basement and we had to participate in twice yearly drills where we would have to go into the basement and stand with our backs against the wall.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-30-2013, 01:29 PM:

Sure, radioactive imaging is great... but I actually think it's the opposite to what Sean is mentioning and that the medical community doesn't do anywhere near enough to avoid radioactive imaging.

Like many doctors and insurance co's want someone with low back pain to first get an xray when they suspect that there's a problem with a disc. Great, except discs don't show up on xray (xray being poor for soft tissue) and low back xray uses a lot more ionizing radiation than for other parts of the body. Or how women can only get their yearly breast exams paid for if they use xray (mammogram) rather than MRI, despite the fact that the latter detects cancer much earlier. And while this avoids the expense of treatment costs later, they pay for the xray because it's cheaper than the MRI.