With apologies for crossposting but the recipient forums seem
appropriate . . .

Probably not a lot of validity in most guesses, even educated ones or a
Snopes inquiry, as our border radiation detectors are evolving rapidly
as we type. Maaaaaany people are working looong hours at multiple
facilities to design and deploy new detection concepts, technology, and
hardware at everything from remote southern deserts to major urban
ports. Fortunately, the media hasn't stumbled across the details yet, or
they'd have hand-delivered them to the very people we're trying to stop.
I hope to see rampant, broad, numerous, contradictory, even stupid
and/or deliberately misleading guesses . . . or silence. There's way too
much idle but harmful curiosity about what is being done in the interest
of security.

I.P.

Why do you think it wouldn't have been cancer?
Someone on my thyroid cancer list set off an alarm several weeks after her
treatment with radioactive iodine -- the same substance used to treat hyper
or whatever, it's the dose that varies. Patients are advised to carry a
letter from their doctors about it.

I've heard that prostrate cancer patients have implants that can set off
alarms, but don't know anything more than that, or what substance is used.

Detectors can vary in how sensitive they are.
bj

I didn't read the article but yes, this can (and does) happen. If we
find out that a patient is crossing the border within the next few days,
or traveling to an airport, we give them a standard letter explaining
that they were injected with technetium or given oral iodine.

Most of the time it is with truck drivers who regularly cross into the
US. In the fall we also have a lot of "snowbirds" heading South.

I don't know how sensitive the detectors are, but the thought of some 70
year old grandmother having her car torn apart simply because she had a
bone scan the day before doesn't appeal to me.

Andrew