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Tuesday Aug. 6, 2002; 10:27 a.m. EDT
Airport Screeners Order Mom to Drink Breast Milk
In the latest in a series of airport security nightmares, a woman flying from New York to Florida was forced to drink three bottles of her own breast milk before being allowed to board a flight at JFK International Airport - in an incident that has one prominent New York civil rights attorney ready to sue.
Elizabeth McGanny of Oceanside, NY called WABC Radio's Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby Tuesday morning to relate the story.
Guards at JFK's Delta terminal first "patted me down and made me take my shoes off," McGanny told the morning radio duo. "One security guard took my four-month-old out of my arms and then they went through the baby's diaper bag."
There the guards discovered the three suspect bottles, McGanny said, and promptly ordered her to drink the contents.
"I'm not drinking that. It's breast milk," she replied. "They said, 'Either drink all three bottles or your not getting on the plane.'"
McGanny said that when she asked the guards why they were putting her through the ordeal, they explained, "There could be explosives in the baby bottles and I could throw something at the stewardesses."
"I asked them if I could just taste it; if I could just show them how you would check a baby's bottle - that it was warm milk and everything. And they said, 'No,'" ordering her to "drink it all."
The nursing mom then offered to feed the milk to her baby as the guards looked on but they refused.
After hearing the tale, Kuby, who doubles as one of New York's most celebrated civil rights attorneys, suggested that McGanny call his office.
"How much money do you smell here?" Sliwa asked his radio partner.
"If I get a jury of nursing mothers - a lot," Kuby replied.
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