Burning Question: Do Germs Spread on Airport Security Lines?

From the Wall Street Journal:

Well, there is one pull quote that should generate some disagreement. The rest is similar.

Nothing about the dirty, reusable swabs TSA use for ETD tests. I'd love to have county health or CDC culture those.

I have never noticed that they reuse swabs. They do cross contaminate the little cans by rummaging through them with their dirty gloves.

There were several anecdotal reports here about the same swab being used until it tested positive.

It is painfully obvious that the average TSA employee hasn't the foggiest notion of "cross-contamination."

TSA's argument (and it has some merit) would be that there are germs everywhere. Pax with known immune system weaknesses should already be taking extra precautions every where they go.

For those pax with normal immune systems, well....we've gone over a decade without an outbreak of something at the checkpoint, so clearly that proves that the risk is low to non-existent.

I put 'checkpoint socks' on before the TDC and remove them after the checkpoint because I don't want to put filthy feet back into my shoes. I'm less worried about the general filth than I am about cross-contaminated swabs (and what that can lead to) and hands running through my hair (glove change, please). I do not want to pick up something disgusting like head lice. I'm amazed when I see a TSO running hands through pax hair and then touching his/her own hair without changing gloves. Not a risk I would take.

Some merit? Think about all the places you go other than security checkpoints in the course of a trip - taxis, hotels, subway/trains, public restrooms, airplanes, rental cars, etc. Germs can spread anywhere, and are probably moer likely to spread in many places than at the checkpoint. I don't know why this is news.

There were some reports here about TSA employees using the restroom while wearing their blue gloves, and returning to "screening" passengers without changing them.

What's a little hair lice to someone who can't be arsed to wash their hands or change their gloves after using the restroom?

What about the risk for those who have compromised immune systems? What about those who might have picked up something untraceable to the checkpoint and have been severely sickened and even died? Even one death from a bacteria or virus acquired at a checkpoint is one too many.

I'd like to see some stats on illness among screeners at checkpoints; that could tell us something about what diseases are passed through contact with passengers.

I absolutely cannot accept that bacteria and viruses are not spread at checkpoints.

P.S. I know that the CDC has concerns about checkpoints but won't "voice" them.

But, but, but, you are entering a sterile area, guarded by burly folks with badges. The germ's nuclei are probably quaking with fear.....

I cannot accept that TSA does not require its employees to change gloves after rummanging around in someones bags or after touching another person since TSA does stick their hands in our pants, in our hair, and on bare skin.

If there is no hazard then why do TSA screeners need gloves?

Theatre.

Not germs as such, but from March 2009: TSOs at BOS have scabies

With people from far-flung places passing through a checkpoint on their way to far-flung places, it would have to be pretty dramatic to pin down a particular outbreak to a particular checkpoint. Imagine that 10% of the passengers through a given checkpoint at ORD over the course of 3 days came down with the same infection a few days later when they're at destinations around the world. How many would figure out that they picked it up at the checkpoint, and how would they contact others who'd been through the same checkpoint to find a correlation?

It's for their protection, not ours...

Back before there was an in-line baggage screening system in T4 @ LAX, which admittedly was a few years ago now, while standing in line to drop my bag, I watched a screener sneeze into his gloved hands, pick his nose, & then go right back to rummaging thru someone's bag.

Just a few weeks ago, while waiting for a flight out of DFW, I watched the screeners @ C21 do their thing (I was bored, plus I wanted to see how many pax still got groped after being scoped-was running 50+%). At one point, female screener decided that scoping wasn't enough & wanted to swab the hands of a pax coming thru. She pulled the swab out of a baggie that was hanging wide open on the rope w/her grimy gloves that had been who knows where, swabbed the pax hands & then the fun really started. For more than 5 minutes (remember, I was bored), she & 2 other screeners traded that swab back & forth while going from one side of the check point to the other trying to find a machine that would actually work to 'analyze' it. I am still stunned that after all that the thing came up negative & the pax was finally allowed on her way.

What's even more amazing, of course, is that there are people who still believe the only reason planes aren't falling out of the sky is because of BS like this

I used to fly to MCO a lot, and they would insist that my shoes be on the belt and not in a bin. They'd pull them out of the bin and put them on the belt. When I asked why it was because "people had complained about the unsanitary nature of shoes being in a bin that personal effects can also be in."

Now I have no idea if this was one TSO's theory or if this was the reason.

But it's outrageous that because some nut-job is afraid of germs, my $600 shoes have to get scratched. Don't I, as a Taxpaying U.S. citizen, have a right to have my property treated with care?

They will accept a damage claim, but may not pay. As for "rights", we have fewer every passing day. Anyone who doesn't see it happening is like a frog, blissfully soaking up the heat while being slowly boiled.