>>> April 11, 2002

Swiggin’ for Uncle Sam

Headed home from visiting Colorado, 14-year-old Pennsylvania resident Elliot Gosko made no attempt to hide the bottle he was carrying from airport security. In it was some cloudy water he’d taken from a stream for his high school biology class. With the clock nearing departure time, security told the boy to drink some to prove its safety. Now, Elliot Gosko is awaiting test results from the illness that ensued. It’s suspected the cause is giardia, a micro-organism common in untreated water that could bring severe and sometimes chronic stomach ailments.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said it’s unlikely the boy would have been asked to drink from the bottle had security known it was creek water, “unless we had reason to believe it was something else.” Knowing how terrorists hate to cause themselves harm, asking passengers to ingest the contents of open containers has become standard practice since 9/11. :

—Scott Saxon