The Transportation Security Administration will no longer use CastScope to screen individuals with prosthetic devices, according to a news release from the Amputee Coalition.
The Amputee Coalition has worked with other organizations such as Wounded Warriors to advocate for the elimination of the use of the CastScope for airport screening due to increased exposure to radiation and the difficulties it created with the screening process. Amputees will now be screened in the same manner as other travelers.
The CastScope had been used in selected airports since 2008 for additional screening of those with casts or with prostheses. Unlike a full-body imaging machine, the CastScope images only the area with a prosthetic device, often resulting in up to 20 X-rays of one leg. A 2010 Amputee Coalition survey cited the CastScope as problematic because its use resulted in inconsistent and unfair screenings by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees.
“We are very pleased that TSA listened to the limb loss community and decided to eliminate the use of this technology in screening people wearing prosthetic devices,” Leslie Pitt Schneider, Amputee Coalition board member and chair of the Coalition’s Government Relations Committee, stated in the release. “We have been receiving complaints from amputees who travel through the airports using CastScopes on a regular basis, and we believe this action will help to make the screening process less difficult for amputees and air travel less of a barrier.”
