Originally Posted by
essxjay
Hope this is taken as a thoughtful response and not criticism.
If this CPAP device is something that you'd rather others not touch without fresh gloves then you simply need to be intractable on the point and accept the possible consequences, all the way up to missing your flight. If you're unwilling to miss your flight they you'll need to figure out how much time you're willing to spend on waiting for a TSA supervisor, GSD or even LEO to appeal to before caving.
Know what you're willing and not willing to put up with beforehand and decided on game plan next time you fly.
No worries- I'm happy for any advice. Between reading FT and my own experiences I do know that stands have to be taken. I'm thinking about Goalie and his shoes, for example. (though if you read my far-too-long version, we couldn't take a stand the first time because the agent took out the device so quickly.)
There are two layers of (what I thought were) TSA guidelines that were stretched/broken here, as I see it.
First, I had thought that pax could always request fresh gloves at any time. One might be ignored or get a hard stare for this, but pax can ask.
Second, separately, and more importantly, I'd thought that medical equipment gets special treatment from the TSA: as much as possible agents aren't supposed to handle medical supplies--people themselves are to open and close bottles, show syringes, etc.
I'd have thought that the very act of saying "That's a medical device" should have made the TSA agent(s) pause. Instead they acted as if--how to put it--recognizing a CPAP machine gave them the right to immediately take it out for the swab test without any consideration for how clean their hands, gloves, and the table by the swab test were.
Can they do that? Certainly. Have actual regulations for medical devices changed? That's what I would like to find out.