"...the TSA will take steps to retrain its officers on proper breast milk-screening procedures..."

This may be the way the story is being reported, but this doesn't sound like "The TSA says they will stop putting breast milk through the screening process and exposing it to radiation." This is the solution that should have been offered in the settlement.

Fayd, I picked up on that too. It doesn't sound to me like the TSA has actually agreed to do anything. They're just paying some money to make the lawsuit go away and avoid having a court establish a precedent regarding their operations.

Actually, breast milk -- like medications -- is not supposed to be put through the x-ray. That's been TSA policy since July 2007.

Supposedly as a result of this settlement, the clerks staffing the checkpoints will all be trained properly in knowing what they're already supposed to know.

Yeah, I believe that'll happen.

This was such a stupid no brainer.

The next lawsuit should examine how the TSA was able to hire all those other law firms and drag out what could have been an apology, acknowledgement, and some training into what had to have been a four year multi-million dollar exercise to get to the same place.

It takes a hysterical ninny to want to spend thousands of dollars and hours in court over breast milk being x rayed.

The milk doesn't absorb radiation, and her kid got a big dose of real radiation by being on a plane at 35,000 feet.

It takes a hysterical ninny to want to spend thousands of dollars and hours in court over breast milk being x rayed. -- Isab at April 23, 2014 4:12 PM

I had a 10ML vial of medicine (the whole vial fits in a shot glass) that I didn't want x-rayed based on the idea that I'm going to inject it into my body. The flight out the TSA was like "Why?" but just looked at it and let it through.

The return flight the fucking TSA insisted on putting me through the metal detector, porno-scanner, and a pat down plus made me empty my back pack and searched it as well. And then finally used the sniffer on the medicine.

That is stupidity of the highest order. So I applaud this woman for winning the case. More of these cases need to be won so we have a chance to finally win and maybe disband the TSA and a lot of the post 9/11 stupidity that was put in place.

"It takes a hysterical ninny to want to spend thousands of dollars and hours in court over breast milk being x rayed.
The milk doesn't absorb radiation, and her kid got a big dose of real radiation by being on a plane at 35,000 feet."
Posted by: Isab at April 23, 2014 4:12 PM

Oh, yes, Isab, shame on that hysterical ninny. She should have accepted her bullying, harassment, and detention in the glassed-in gulag with a smile! Why, when those nice, sweet TSA agents told her to "be quiet" and "do as you're told," she should've saluted smartly and replied, "Yes, sir!"

As for the money, you're so right -- the thousands of dollars per hour that you the taxpayer spent to defend the TSA's indefensible behavior were nothing in comparison to the money Stacey Armato paid out of her own pocket.

Gosh, why don't you run the country?! You're so smart!

The milk doesn't absorb radiation, and her kid got a big dose of real radiation by being on a plane at 35,000 feet.

Her "kid" wasn't with her, but I guess you missed that.

What?

Who travels with breast milk - for an infant, really - without the infant? How long does it keep, unrefrigerated?

Just a surprise to me.

Lots of women travel with breast milk; lots of women pump at work to take home to baby.

Unrefigerated it keeps for about 4 hours. When traveling, breast milk is kept in a cooler with ice packs, just like some meds. Moms who pump at work also most often put their milk in a cooler.

What? Who travels with breast milk - for an infant, really - without the infant?

If a breastfeeding woman doesn't discharge her milk regularly, either into bottles or the mouth of her babe, it's painful. As in her breasts feel physical pain. Biology, mate.

Radwaste, working/traveling mothers carry their breast milk in sterile bottles. As noted above, it keeps for a few hours, but then must be refrigerated. Most mothers have coolers with chill packs in them.

Here's something else to consider: lactating women either nurse their baby or pump the milk *on a schedule*. If a nursing or pumping session is missed, your breasts get engorged with milk, and it gets extremely painful. If you are detained for any length of time--kept in a glass box, say--you will begin leaking milk, and you will be in ever-increasing pain. In other words, the longer you go without nursing or expressing (pumping) that milk, the worse it gets: breasts will get hot, rock-hard, and unbearably painful. I can only imagine that Ms. Amato, once she was freed by her criminal captors, rushed to the bathroom so she could hand-express the milk into a sink, because that's what I and every mother reading this would have done in her situation.

Delaying pumping/feeding risks even more than just a lot of pain (I am not minimizing this pain).

A women can get a clogged milk duct which can turn into an infection, mastitis, which is horribly painful (significantly more painful than engorgement) and requires antibiotics, and requires extra work to relieve the clog.