Up until now I used to worry about if I had been around anything with gun powder in it when I was going to board a flight, I have read reports of people tripping the security devices by having powder residue on themselves because of things like target practice, hunting or reloading shells. Now you have to be careful that your last medical procedure doesn’t come back to give you a hard time.
Certain medical scans can render people radioactive enough to trigger false security alarms at airports for up to a month, a Lancet article warns…
The Lancet piece highlights the case of a 55-year-old commercial pilot referred for cardiac investigation. Doctors carried out a scan using a radioisotope of the element thallium. Two days after the scan the patient travelled to Moscow as a crew member.
While passing through customs, the radiation detector alarms were triggered, and the patient was detained for questioning. After extensive interrogation, he was released, but experienced the same problem at the same airport four days later.
Eventually the airport security officials gave him a card to carry while travelling that explained his scan was to blame.
Medical Scans Can Trip Airport Radiation Detectors