The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "X-rays" ...
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Toxic Trinkets
After national coverage of toy recalls in the United States, KVOA wanted to localize the story. Using an X-ray gun to examine toys, they found some with lead content over 600 parts per million. They then took all the toys back and did lab testing. "By using lab testing, the entire toy's paint is scraped off and dissolved in acid- then an overall reading is obtained." This resulted in some toys having different lead levels. They found that for some toys, certain parts had over the 600 ppm, but overall the toy was under the amount.
Tags: consumer reports; consumer safety; toy recall; lead content; health; children; lab testing; testing; Consumer Product Safety Commission; Gabrielle Giffords
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Airport Security
CBS reporters, led by a former Federal Aviation Administration security team employee, test eight major airports -- JFK, LaGuardia, Baltimore, Reagan National, Atlanta, St. Louis, Ft. Lauderdale and Los Angeles -- for security flaws. They enter through checkpoints with lead-lined film bags where weapons could be hidden invisible to the X-ray machines. The result is the same both six months after Sept. 11 and a year after Sept. 11: In 70 percent of the cases the security personnel fails to open the lead-lined bags.
Tags: terrorism; safety; bombs; 9/11; whistleblowing; airlines; TAPE; TRANSCRIPT
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Airport security: Years of inaction left flawed system to fail
A Kansas City Star investigative packet examines lapses in aviation security, which allowed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attack to occur. Airlines have always fought against draft legislation for raising minimum security standards, the Star reports, in order to keep their attractiveness to customers and profit margins. One of the stories reveals that airlines have regularly sent congressmen on vacation and 'educational' trips for free, in exchange for favorable legislation. Despite constant warnings by the General Accounting Office, not only the Congress, but also the FAA failed to enforce rules to tighten airport security. Some of the findings are that screeners sometimes turned out to be felons, and bags were not scanned for bombs. The investigation focuses on problems detected specifically at the Kansas City International Airport, the nation's 35th busiest airport.
Tags: American Association of Airport Executives; Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); TWA; United Airlines; Delta Air; screeners; security; lobbying; bombs; terrorism; bombs; check-in; X-rays; weapons
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Singled Out
WAGA-TV reports "a statistical analysis of six months' worth of passenger searches by U.S. Customs inspectors at Hartsfield International Airport. We found inspectors routinely targeted African-American passengers looking for drugs. The searches included hands-on body searches, strip searches, monitored bowel movements and x-rays of passenger's intestines at a local hospital. The analysis determined inspectors rarely found drugs. In fact, of all the African-American passengers searched in six months, 99 percent were innocent.."
Tags: TAPE TRANSCRIPT CAR racial profiling DEA Drug Enforcement Agency Port Authorities Justice Department
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Radiation Risks Revisited
Technology Review reports that "In the late 1970s, British epidemiologist Alice Stewart and her colleagues released a study claiming that workers exposed to low-level ionizing radiation at the U.S. government's Hanford nuclear weapons complex in Washington state had a heightened cancer risk. This troubling conclusion - with potentially far-reaching implications for radiation exposure standards, medical practices, and nuclear industry operations - ignited a major controversy....An analysis by Stewart and statistician George W. Kneale, her longtime collaborator, soon to appear in the 'American Journal of Industrial Medicine,' claims to further establish a connection between exposure of nuclear workers to supposedly safe doses of low-level ionizing radiation and the risk of contracting cancer..."
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California:The Weapons Master
Sacramento Bee looks at the nuclear weapons industry in California; examines the industry's impact on the economy, including "Star Wars" technology, at X-ray laser weapons and reactors in space.
Tags: Nuclear Weapons; Star Wars; Space technology
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No title (id: 5565)
Los Angeles Times Magazine details how a former associate director for nuclear weapons at the Lawrence Livermore Lab told government officials about problems at the lab; despite vindictive reaction from the lab, Roy Woodruff told how SDI technology such as the X-ray laser has been misrepresented, July 17, 1988.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 5433)
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article tells of internal politics in the Livermore National Laboratory's program to develop the X-ray laser, a key SDI weapon; the former head of the program resigned his post because other powerful insiders and scientists were overstating the promise and progress of the weapon and supplying technically inaccurate information in secret briefings to Reagan administration officials, July/August 1988.
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No title (id: 5404)
Rocky Mountain News (Denver) reviews state inspection records and finds that more than half of Colorado's 5,400 diagnostic X-ray devices were overdue for safety inspections, Aug. 2 - 7, 1987.
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California: The Weapons Master
Sacramento Bee explores the powerful influence of the growing number of California's nuclear weapons designers dependent on military research; finds a power base strong enough to dictate national policy, and exposes dishonest representations on the progress of the X-ray laser, June - December 1987.