TSA denies screening for young boy with pacemaker
 

https://www.facebook.com/ali.bergstr...10596090042613

Link is not much good if you are not on faceache. :)

I'm not on FB and link worked fine.

Didn't work for me, and still doesn't. No matter.

The summary is a mom lies about what her son said to gain sympathy from the anti-TSA crowd because her bags were searched. She also apparently started demanding to talk to a supervisor and refused the screening and was surprised they sent additional units to her.

Her bags were searched because her son has a pacemaker and therefore he couldn't go through the metal detector. That isn't true, it would go off and he could be screened like anyone else but his mom disagreed with that.

What is the point of posting these links if you don't have any factual information to add.

theddo's summary looks like most of the anti-TSA links that get posted. Turns out to be less than half the truth and just spins up the black helicopter crowd all over again.

What evidence is there that the mom lied? I choose to believe her story based on past acts on TSA's part.

No, that isn't the summary. It's just one (highly biased) interpretation of what happened. Such an interpretation causes me to wonder if you have any experience traveling with someone with medical issues.

I personally have quite a lot of experience with how the TSA handles medical issues. For example, how do they deal with liquid medication?

Our experience: I take the prescription bottle out of the carry-on, inform the person at the start of the belt that we have liquid medication and that it needs to be hand checked. Our bags go through the machine, we get to other other of the belt and then somebody wants to stick a swab into the bottle of medication. They won't disclose what is on the swab, they don't use sterile technique and this is not a medication that can be easily replaced - it's a custom, compounded drug, so, no, I don't allow them to put anything into the bottle or even open the bottle.

Suddenly the bags that had previously been cleared by x-ray must be open and basically dumped on the counter. Multiple items are swabbed. I get a (very retaliatory) pat-down. They call over 4 more people and have extended conversations. Several of these people deliberately stand between me and our belongings and I end up repeatedly telling them that TSA rules require me to keep my belongings in my line of sight, so either they need to move or I will have to (they hate being reminded of their agency rules).

Eventually they decide that the medication poses no threat to the aircraft and then try to rush us as we repack our bags.

No, this wasn't a one-time experience. It's what has happened to us on more than 15 trips over the last 5 years at at least a dozen different airports.

Interesting thing, in Europe they can manage to clear the medication without asking to open it, digging through our bags or the pat-down.

I also wonder about your comments on the effect of screening on the pacemaker. As the government does not release the specs on the imaging machines, no pacemaker manufacturer has been able to test and see if the machines would effect an implanted device. WTMD is believed not to cause a problem but that isn't certain according to several MedScape articles. It is known that the wand testing would interfere with the pacemaker, potentially causing major problems.

You mean an accurate description of TSA misconduct? Can you explain why they searched the bags like that, and how opening up the bags and swiping everything in them contributed to aviation security?

No--apparently the metal detector was unacceptable with the pacemaker. It sounds like there was some standard procedure for the case that the agents in question weren't following and she was demanding the screening she normally got rather than what they were doing.

It certainly does sound retaliatory. If you're going to give the TSA a strange situation give them plenty of time so they can't play the obey-or-miss-your-flight game.

I don't think a pacemaker is especially strange, given the amount of pacemakers, ICDs, DBS, SCS, VPS and different pumps people have these days so the TSA would probably see a few a day at any major airport (even if most of them won't be in children - that's pretty rare).

The screening with a metal detector was unacceptable to the parent, and he was offered another screening. I don't see him being turned away, I don't see them denying him access to the airport or actually I don't even see the "TSA denies screening" at any point.

They refused to do exactly what she said, but they aren't required to.

Europe has always had more sane security checks than the US, that is hardly news for anyone and couldn't come as a surprise for someone who asks for the usual at a TSA checkpoint. The point of the TSA checkpoint is to do the searches they require.

No pacemaker manufacturer recommends it?

But you also have people who've done studies on it, like http://content.onlinejacc.org/articl...icleid=1132369

There is currently a lawsuit in Pennsylvania regarding the issue. There is one incident reported where a pacemaker stopped working after going through a metal detector - and there was never any follow up to determine if the pacemaker was malfunctioning or not.

I don't believe her son said what she says are verbatim quotes. Following that, I'm assuming she might've lied about the rest, too.

The TSA not believing that a child has a pacemaker? Would not surprise me. The TSA retaliating against passengers when the TSA believes the passengers are trying to toy with them? Wouldn't surprise me. The TSA retaliating by wanting to do a more extensive baggage search that delays the passengers? Would not surprise me. It's all part of TSA practice.

Speaking of "less than half the truth and just spins up", the above is an example of just that. And the above also summarizes the theddo post as being yet another example of "less than half the truth and just spins up", although I am not so sure yet that assigning such description to theddo's post is "less than half the truth" too.

The TSA-can-do-little/no-wrong crowd is even more amusing -- especially given the TSA's history and stories have been chock full of inconsistencies before too and the TSA cheerleader crowd is more present than the mythical black helicopter crowd.

As someone who has dealt with a fair amount of absurd European "security checks" -- I am at European airports around 50-100 times a year ;) -- let's just say I find the above line to be an exaggeration worthy of legendary tall tales read to young school kids.

I read the quotes as being the essence of what the child said, not a verbatim account.

Why would the mother of a child with a pacemaker want the child to use a metal detector? Something doesnt add up, as usually it's pacemaker users who are told not to use metal detectors.

The mother of the child in the story seems to have embellished the story in such a way that I would be surprised if she does herself any favors in making her story to come across as credible as a story could be without such embellishments. It almost reads like something a kid would right in third or fourth grade when asked to tell a story of what they may have experienced.