Cancer Patient Held At Airport For Missing Fingerprints 323
A 62-year-old man visiting his relatives in the US was held for four hours by immigration officials after they could not detect his fingerprints because of a cancer drug he was taking. The man was prescribed capecitabine, a drug used to treat cancers in the head, neck, breast, and stomach. Some of the drug's side-effects include chronic inflammation of the palms or soles of the feet, which can cause the skin to peel or bleed. "This can give rise to eradication of fingerprints with time," explained Tan Eng Huat, senior consultant in the medical oncology department at Singapore's National Cancer Center. "Theoretically, if you stop the drug, it will grow back, but details are scanty. No one knows the frequency of this occurrence among patients taking this drug and nobody knows how long a person must be on this drug before the loss of fingerprints," he added.
The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:4, Insightful)
We're from the government, and we're here to help you!
Uh, what's that got to do with anything? When would that have been said during this exchange? I mean, customs officials don't say "we're from the government" and they DEFINITELY don't say "We're here to help you."
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
The scariest words in the English language are "I'm just doing my job." That doesn't sound so good in German either.
Besides, immigration officials aren't there to help anyone. Just ask the tourists who don't come to the US anymore.
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Nothing sounds good in German. The words "I love you" sound so guttural that most people start thinking back to certain speeches at Nuremberg a few decades ago ;)
If you're saying it gutturally, you're saying it wrong. There are no guttural sounds in "Ich liebe Dich". The "ch" sound in those words is palatal -- this sound [wikipedia.org], not this sound [wikipedia.org].
Of course German is going to sound guttural and violent if all you listen to is people doing Hitler impressions. Real-life German is about as romantic-sounding as a language gets. (Note: I'm not German.)
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Funny)
Try listening to German porn. Its hilarious!
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Try listening to German porn. Its hilarious!
Ja, meine panzerwagen, das ist gut!
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:4, Insightful)
What... you'd rather the US government got out of the business of border security? Wow. Even the craziest right-wing loonies admit that the government's job is to protect the borders...
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What... you'd rather the US government got out of the business of border security? Wow. Even the craziest right-wing loonies admit that the government's job is to protect the borders...
We have border security? Could have fooled me.....
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, why do they insist on fingerprints to identify someone?
Sure, they might want to know if the person they are holding already has a record.
If not, though, then certainly they are creating a new record, right?
So, gather retinal scans, voice prints, DNA samples, whatever.
Those will suffice if captured after doing something in the future.
Every international airport would have to
And the billions of dollars to implement it.
All for a tiny percentage of the population.
Not to mention the HOWLS OF RAGE from privacy groups, the ACLU, the EU, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Instead of knee-jerk reacting about how stupid the US government is, think about what you just wrote.
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Insightful)
The US government is stupid, but this is just a case of a specific person being stupid (both the official and the poster you replied to).
Fingerprinting everyone who enters your country is only valid when you've already deteriorated civil liberties beyond the point of no return. I don't think turning your country into a police state for the sake of being "safe" is a reasonable scenario. The bottom line is that US foreign policy put the US in its current position, so maybe changing this might ensure safety.
Wars on "terrorism" and clandestine activities involving your secret services aren't exactly on the road to positive foreign policy.
The more the US moves toward this police state (and police the world attitude), the more people will be wrongly detained at airports, boarders, hell, even in other countries. This does not reflect well at all for the US or US citizens.
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Fingerprinting everyone who enters your country is ... turning your country into a police state
What kind of brainlessness is this which asserts that "making sure you are who you say you are" == "police state"?????
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Insightful)
So photographs are no longer valid?
I suppose we should all burn our passports and submit ourselves to chipping? Fingerprinting is not and never will be a valid form of identifying innocent civilians. The only people in my country that get fingerprinted are people who are charged with a crime, not innocent people entering the country (or, now as a newer article shows, leaving the country).
Gee, that doesn't sound like a police state at all.
What kind of brainlessness is this which asserts that "fingerprinting" == "making sure you are who you say you are"?
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Informative)
The US seems to love fingerprinting as a method of ID for some reason. In most countries, the only people that ever have their fingerprints taken are criminals.
I have security clearances to several Australian Federal Government departments (as an IT contractor). No fingerprints required. They just simply aren't used here as a method of ID.
The only people in the world who have my fingerprints, in fact, are the Americans, because I have travelled to the US and they take ALL TEN FINGERPRINTS of all visitors (?!?!!! that's still a serious wtf from me every time I think about it, even though I've gone through it a dozen times now)
Re:The scariest words in the English language (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly my point.
I too am an Aussie, and I find the notion of fingerprinting innocents a gross violation of human rights. It seems the typical response to not wanting to be printed is "if you have nothing to hide you won't mind".
Well, my response is "if I am innocent then why am I being treated like a criminal"?
I know this conversation will go nowhere due to the hard line Americans hijacking it and defending the police state they live in. None are so jaded as the people who fully accept giving up their liberties and rights for the sake of "security"... no, I'm not going to do the full quote, but you get the picture.
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Well, my response is "if I am innocent then why am I being treated like a criminal"?
But getting fingerprinted does not and never has treated you like a criminal. (I first got fingerprinted 30+ years ago for a passport.)
It in only about Authentication. Nothing more, nothing less.
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I find the notion of fingerprinting innocents a gross violation of human rights.
Really? A gross violation of human rights is being sold into slavery. It's being denied personhood. It's having your local police force come by and rape your wife. It's being held indefinitely without charge and being subjected to torture. It's having all the children in your entire ethnic group rounded up and sent to boarding schools to be assimilated.
Being fingerprinted is a pointless invasion of privacy, and an inconvenience.
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So photographs are no longer valid?
Hair cuts, hair dyes, grow/remove beards, weight gain, colored contact lens, nose jobs, etc, etc.
I suppose we should all burn our passports and submit ourselves to chipping?
I was fingerprinted when applying for my passport.
Fingerprinting is not and never will be a valid form of identifying innocent civilians.
How incredibly shortsighted and naive are you????
Because my fingerprints are on file, if I am ever suspected of a "physical" crime in which the perpetrator left a fing
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How on Earth is fingerprinting me going to tell you if I am who I say I am? You have nothing to compare it to, because nobody knows what my fingerprints look like.
just doing their job (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why think when you can follow protocol?
I think we're better off this way.
Re:just doing their job (Score:5, Insightful)
What if they find out he's on cancer drugs because he's some sort of commie biochem guy and is now sick from that. He's dying and wants to do damage to America. He blows up a school. Oh, well, after a few years they'll find he wasn't printed coming into the country. Parents of kids killed sue because protocol wasn't followed, allowing a dangerous wanted person in the country, just because he was sick.
Sickness does not beget special treatment. A plan B should be in place for this sort of thing.
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Sickness does not beget special treatment.
I'll remember that the next time I see a handicapped placard on a car.
Re:just doing their job (Score:5, Insightful)
What if
What if you trip and fall on a sharp corner and poke your eye out? We should ban sharp corners! What if you trip and fall and hit your head on a wall? We should pad all our walls. Or better yet, ban walking or moving about of any kind. We should all be bound to soft beds. What if your teenage child is sexually attracted to a classmate? We should ban children.
We could play what if all day, but the point is, you can't keep everyone safe from everything all the time. You have to ask what freedoms are worth giving up for what safeties. I for one would be willing to give up a lot of the "safety" gained from our security theater for the freedom to get on an airplane without taking off my shoes.
On a side note, didn't we used to belittle commie's for being a "show me your papers" kind of state?
Re:just doing their job (Score:5, Interesting)
When was the last time a real terrorist was found in a border check?
Nine years ago. [wikipedia.org]
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INterestng to note thatb the same evidence to convict him could be used to convicet any model rocket enthusiast.
Also note he was held for an extend time before trial, a complete violation of his do process.
The his confessions were used to convict someone else. I would love to see the transcripts of that conversation:
"Do you know that this man was a terrorist?
Yes.
Convict him boys, this un trustworthy terrorist said this other person was guilty.
4 timers and nitroglycerin? I wonder why no one mention how he wa
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When was the first time a real terrorist was found in a border check?
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Your sig is right on.
Why is four hours a huge deal? I've waited longer than that due to weather, airlines overbooking, and other reasons. As long as they treated him decently for the four hours this should not be a big issue.
Re:just doing their job (Score:5, Insightful)
When government officials detain you for whatever they want, and nobody thinks its a big deal, then truly, the terrorists have won.
Re:just doing their job (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:just doing their job (Score:4, Insightful)
Not at all. He gave them the fingerprints that he had. The fact that they were useless to ICE is not his fault.
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Why think when you can follow protocol?
These are low-wage worker bees. The one thing they know for sure is that they won't get into trouble if they follow protocol. Do you really expect them to think? I'm not saying I like the result, but it's clear to me that if a TSA worker has a choice between your discomfort resulting from following protocol, and his if he breaks protocol and the outcome catches somebody's attention, he'll stick with protocol every time.
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Why get paid when you can think?
I'm guessing that you've never had the fun of working a menial job.
Re:just doing their job (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not do both? Protocol is: get fingerprint. If you cannot get a fingerprint, then you should use your discretion and initiative, e.g.:
- carefully and thoroughly interview the visitor.
- understand and verify the person's reason for not having a fingerprint.
- understand why the person is visiting the country.
- determine whether this person is likely to be a risk or not.
- decide if the person should be allowed into the country despite the lack of fingerprints.
If the border guards didn't want to think, they would have just deported him right away. They were willing to think. They did think. They interviewed him, thought about what he said,possibly spent some time verifying what he said, maybe consulted other people, and in the end they decided he was an acceptable risk. The process took 4 hours. It seems reasonable to me.
I think this shows a system working perfectly. The normal case (over 99% of the time, I would guess) is a few seconds for a fingerprint. The exceptions are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, with a thorough interview and careful consideration (not a stupid snap judgment).
America: A Dialogue (Score:5, Interesting)
Based on a true story and submitted for your critical evaluation, dear reader, I present "America: A Dialogue".
Alice: I can't believe people want to bring the 9/11 terrorists into the US.
Bob: Well, it's the right thing to do. We need to stop torturing them and give them fair trials.
Alice: But not here. They're too dangerous to bring into the country.
Bob:: If our prisons can hold Timothy McVeigh, they can hold anyone. And they're being tortured over there.
Alice: McVeigh is one thing, but if we hold Al Qaeda terrorists, their supporters will come down through Canada and bail them out of Fort Leavenworth. I think they're just too dangerous to keep here, and an island is much more secure anyway.
Bob: But our soldiers are behaving like monsters and torturing these people.
Alice: They deserve it anyway. They attacked us on 9/11. And the real monsters are on top*. Don't criticize our troops who are just trying to do their job. It must hard dealing with those people.
Bob: We don't know they've done anything. They've never been tried. And our troops are responsible for what they do. Didn't we decide that at Nuremberg?
Alice: We know they attacked us. These things happen during war. They happen all the time. My friend's father told me of some nasty stuff that happened in Korea. This is no big deal.
Bob: [dramatic facepalm, exit stage left]
[Curtain drops, Alice appears from behind it]
Alice: I'm so glad we elected someone who can rehabilitate our image in the world.
[House lights]
* Note the slight improvement over the past few years
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You forgot:
Eve: Boys, ready a unit for dispatch...
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Simply because they're not paid to think. They're drones. If they started showing signs of unique thought and it turned out to be 'the wrong thing', then they'd be out of a job, replaced by another drone. Following protocol is greater assurance of continued employment.
More than that, I'm sure there's a natural screening process at work that gets rid of inquisitive people with good heads on their shoulders: the monotony of the job. Looking at people's passports all day has got to be one of the most boring jobs out there. Managing people who look at passports all day and dealing with people who have issues with their passports might be a little more interesting, except with all the paranoia I'm sure they're in a straightjacket and have little power to do anything that so
Can't be the first (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can't be the first (Score:5, Funny)
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oh my. i shouldn't have said tha
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probably a wheelchair
Well yeah. and the wheelchair doesn't go through x-ray nor does the person in it, plus you don't queue for security -- probably the quickest/easiest way to get airside short of wearing a police uniform.
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When I lose my legs, I need to go to your airport. I've seen wheelchaired persons wait in line, and then be forced to get out of their wheelchair while TSA agents flipped the thing upside down to look at it, and then the person *walked* through the X-ray machine.
Obviously, this wouldn't be the case with a double amputee, but I think if you can walk, even a little bit, the "I'm going in a wheelchair" scheme won't save you any time...
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Re:Can't be the first (Score:5, Interesting)
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Please excuse my ignorance-
How does working in a catfish restaurant destroy once fingerprints?
Re:Can't be the first (Score:5, Funny)
Catfish are toxic. Apparently they have such toxicity that they burn of your fingerprints if you handle enough of them.
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Re:Can't be the first (Score:4, Insightful)
And here, ladies and gentleman, is a person that's NEVER done a fish fry or turkey deep fry.
Here sir, let me put your fingers NEAR this FOUR HUNDRED DEGREE HOT OIL.
Sorry if you get any spatters on yourself or if you burn yourself touching the frying basket where you shouldn't.
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I've fried a turkey; I guess I'm just smart enough not to fuck up my fingers (I use a digital thermometer so it is easy to tell when oil is too hot to touch). Also, the parent said nothing about fried catfish; I just figured it was some fresh fish place down by a lake.
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I dunno, I'm stumped.
(ducks)
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The man was held for four hours to verify he wasn't a security threat, the excuse he gave wasn't listed in the product packaging for the drug he was taking and the report of this incident suggests that a letter from his doctors which he didn't have would have been enough to alleviate the problem when traveling to the US.
I see no mention outside of his detainment and the verification of his situation that he was treated badly or disrespectful in any way. Or is your "ZOMG! PROBABLE TERRORIST!" comment code fo
Best country in the world (Score:2, Insightful)
I always feel so welcome entering the US :)
Seriously though, how often do border guards ever catch anyone? All that frisking and undressing and do they EVER catch anyone? I feel certain that if they ever did, it would be all over the media. As evidenced here, this pointless pompous nonsense reaches the pinacle of its expression on the way into the US.
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Not the same thing, but there _were_ those "mental giants" that recently tried to blow up a temple in NYC, and shoot down a military plane with a rocket launcher. Thing is, these geniuses didn't realize that they were being scammed by the Feds the entire time: the "C4" wasn't real, nor was the "rocket."
Ok, they had intent, and their motive was certainly questionable. But their means were non-existent, and they weren't even smart enough to realize that. At best, these punks should be called "unsocial reta
Re:Best country in the world (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, they were dumb. Most criminals are. Most terrorists aren't exactly the sharpest marbles in the sack, either. How dumb do you have to be for someone to convince you that blowing yourself up or flying an airplane into a building is a good idea and will help you achieve your goals?
However, they only failed because the supplier they found was an undercover Fed rather than someone who would supply actual weapons. As for reality, the rocket was real; it was just disarmed. As for the C-4, it's probably possible to supply fake C-4 that behaves just like the real thing except it won't actually explode. It's not surprising that they didn't test the stuff; they had no reason to, believing it to be authentic, and testing C-4 is likely to attract a lot of attention.
The bottom line is, they *are* terrorists. They did have a concrete plan to carry out attacks. They attempted to carry out that plan. They were caught by good undercover police work. To try and say they aren't terrorists because they were arrested before they could blow anything up is like trying to say somebody isn't a drug dealer because he gets arrested after selling to a narc.
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Most terrorists aren't exactly the sharpest marbles in the sack, either
Sharp marbles? That explains it! No wonder this guy's got worn down fingerprints! Give him the round smooth marbles we use to use when I was a kid and it'll all be fine.
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You miss my point. This was more like a boxing match between someone incapable of defending himself and a heavyweight champion. The champ won - surprise! - and then bragged about it.
Calling these guys terrorists is about as accurate as calling the Keystone Kops "law enforcement officials." Put it this way: the Feds weren't afraid of supplying this material to these guys and letting them loose. If they were potentially a real threat, the Feds would've picked them up well before they even got close to the
Re:Best country in the world (Score:4, Informative)
Secondly, he didn't just walk up to them, open his trench coat and say "Pssst, wanna buy some C4 and a Stinger?" They were looking for stuff, so the FBI put forward a supplier.
Actually, the informant, Shahed Hussain, did go around saying things like that, in this case and another one, and federal agents have set up other people like that.
Hussain was a Pakistani immigrant who went undercover for the feds seven years ago to avoid deportation after being convicted of fraud. He was going around to mosques offering people money. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/nyregion/23informant.html [nytimes.com] And by being a government informant, (1) Hussain was getting paid a lot of money (hundreds of thousands of dollars, as I recall) (2) He got out of prosecution and possibly prison for his own crimes (3) Instead of being deported, he was allowed to stay in the country, which for a lot of immigrants is most important of all.
Hussain was responsible for a conviction in another case http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/nyregion/11plot.html [nytimes.com] in which he entrapped two men who never had anything to do with terrorism before, and who never could have gotten such weapons before, by loaning them $50,000.
One of the plotters in the current case needed money because his brother was sick. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/05/25/2009-05-25_terror_plotter_did_it_for_me_brother.html [nydailynews.com]
Finally, if an FBI agent *had* walked up and said "Pssst, wanna buy some C4 and a Stinger?" and they said yes, then got busted, that'd stand up in court. Offering an illegal item for sale is not legal entrapment.
Well, depending on the circumstances it can be entrapment. If the person had no predisposition to commit a crime, and the FBI agent entices him by using an unreasonable amount of pressure, such as offering a huge amount of money, it can be entrapment. It's a jury question.
Cf. John Delorean's coke bust.
DeLorean was acquitted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_De_Lorean [wikipedia.org] That's a good example of entrapment, because DeLorean was offered an unreasonable amount of money, in desperate circumstances, to do something he would not otherwise do.
Or anybody who gets busted for soliciting prostitution when the prostitute turns out to be a police officer.
If someone solicits a prostitute, that would show predisposition to commit a crime.
In contrast, a person who has never committed an act of terrorism, and has nothing to do with terrorists, who is enticed to take a large amount of money and then informed that it is for terrorist purposes, is entrapped, under the law.
Unfortunately, it's easy to manipulate juries with prejudicial issues, such as the defendant's race and religion. Right now, many jurors will be prejudiced against Muslim Arabs, and it's relatively easy for a prosecutor to get a conviction against them by using scare tactics.
A good example was Hemant Lakhani, whose case was the subject of a good program on This American LIfe. http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1088 [thislife.org] One of the jurors agreed that he was entrapped, but she felt pressured by the other jurors to go along. Most people who listen to that broadcast would come to the same conclusion. But Lakhani is in jail for the rest of his life.
Next time around, the time will come for them to be prejudiced against another ethnic group or religion.
What was your race and religion again?
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You show me a person who says "Yeah, sure" to an offer of blowing up a Synagogue for cash and I'll show you a person with a predisposition to do that anyway.
If you had read psychologists like Stanley Milgram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_milgram [wikipedia.org] you'd know that most people could be manipulated to do exactly what the Nazis did by someone who is a skillful manipulator -- and informers are skillful manipulators. If you read testimony at these trials, you'll see that the defendants made innocent decisions that would have seemed reasonable at the time, and one thing led to another.
If you had been in that situation, an undercover agent might have manipulated y
Re:Best country in the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, yes:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2001/1125/cover.html [nwsource.com]
An alert border guard caught a guy trying to get across the border with a bunch of bomb stuff. This case with the finger prints doesn't sound like a case of anybody being "alert" - but for my money, training people to detect and investigate is far better than the ridiculous security theater we usually see - taking off shoes and having jars of plum jam confiscated.
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Technology-determined guilt or innocence (Score:5, Interesting)
It's similar to the situation with breathalyzers where if the machine beeps or not can be the difference between you going to jail or driving home. Our judges have been replaced by robotic imposters, and I imagine it will get worse in the future.
Re:Technology-determined guilt or innocence (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAL, but my understanding is that refusal laws apply only after an arrest. Refusal to take a roadside breathalyzer does, however, constitute probably cause for arrest. Once you are placed under arrest as a result of either refusing or failing a roadside breathalyzer, you are given an evidentiary test, using with a more reliable machine. Refusing this test is what triggers the refusal laws.
Again, IANAL, but it seems better to always refuse a test if you know you're going to fail. Failure to blow is a civil penalty. A DUI is a criminal conviction that can haunt you for the rest of your life.
That's Nothin' (Score:5, Funny)
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Saw it last week. The movie is Ernest Saves Christmas [imdb.com].
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Is it possible to get surgery or laser-work which just replaces your fingerprints with abusive messages directed towards anyone scanning them?
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yes
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Headline on Fox News tonight: (Score:5, Funny)
Terrible New Terrorism Drug Helps Terrorists Evade Identification And Cause More Terrible Terror.
some people just don't have fingerprints (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife had to get a special exemption to sit for the bar exam because the state police couldn't take her fingerprints, which were necessary for conducting the required criminal background check. She has no idea why her fingerprints are virtually nonexistent.
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My wife worked at a biotech company. She had to wash her hands constantly for her job, and her fingerprints just washed off eventually.... But their security system to gain access to the building involved a fingerprint scanner and PIN.
She had to get a security exception to get into the building every single day.
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Yes, based on your anecdotal sample size of one, clearly I'm making this up.
She has a mild case of Eczema [wikipedia.org], which is commonly aggrivated by excessive washing. It causes cracking peeling, swelling and scarring. Her thumb prints have *not* grown back.
Re:some people just don't have fingerprints (Score:5, Funny)
She secretly works for the MIB. They remove your fingerprints when they join. Every time you discover this, however, she gets you with her little memory-zapper-thingy.
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Oh, piff (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutiae [wikipedia.org]
Obviously (Score:5, Funny)
4 hours? (Score:3, Insightful)
How stupid can you be if such a specific case takes 4 hours?
DHS senior personnel thinks that they NEED fingerprints to let someone enter? [fascist state proof #1]
DHS is unsure if they can send him back because there are no prints.
[cluelessness proof #1] Etc.
Of course the man didn't tell them he was taking medicine etc.
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As if the prints would return this quick?
I don't know, man. On CSI they always have a match within about 12 seconds!
The Penguin (not the Linux kind) tried this (Score:5, Funny)
In an episode of the original Adam West "Batman" series, the caped crusader was performing a high-tech fingerprint scan on all the citizens leaving some sort of event. Along comes a long-nosed fellow -- obviously The Penguin, since his disguise was about as effective as Superman's "Clark Kent" cover. Batman attempts the fingerprint scan, but the man has no fingerprints.
"Holy Nonsequitur, Batman!" the intrepid Robin exclaims, "it's plastic!"
"Yes, I believe that's what the surgeon used," replies the ersatz innocent civilian.
Batman lets him go, but confides to Robin that he knows it's the Penguin -- but now that the dastardly enemy thinks he's slipped the trap, he will now lead them to the bad guys' secret lair.
Obviously, the TSA should have done the same with this guy. Then, they could have found the entire Al Qaida leadership, probably meeting in a rakishly tilted room, behind the one-way mirror in a seedy magic shop.
Cancer Drugs? Not for him! (Score:2)
He should have said that the drugs were for his Goat!
Cancer Patient might be an alien... (Score:2)
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Been there, done that... (Score:5, Informative)
I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005, and after surgery I did the chemotherapy thing. One of my drugs was Xeloda, which is the marketing name for capecitabine, the drug this guy is taking.
The problem mentioned in TFA is Hand-Foot Syndrome (HFS) or palmer-palmer erythrodysesthesia. Capecitabine causes redness, swelling, a rash, and burning pain in the hands and feet - and sometimes elsewhere such as joints and genitals. In bad cases the skin peels and you get blisters, ulcers and sores in the affected areas. This is because some of the drug leaks out of the capillaries and damages the surrounding tissues, and you have a lot of capillaries close to the surface in the hands and feet.
There are drugs (Vitamin B6, corticosteroids, dimethyl sulfoxide) that can help sometimes - but they didn't for me. Walking became extremely painful, and my hands were constantly hot and painful, although I didn't lose my fingerprints as far as I know. Everything returned to normal some months after chemotherapy completed.
I really sympathize with this guy. Dealing with immigration headaches while having bad hand-foot syndrome would have been a total hassle for me. Even standing up for a few minutes was torture.
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Sorry to hear that you had health issues :( I hope you are okay now.
Sense of touch (Score:3, Interesting)
I wrote about this in my cancer blog [blogspot.com] a few months back:
I lost some feeling in my hands and feet due to the various chemotherapy drugs I've taken over the past five years. I also lost my fingerprints thanks to Xeloda, which irritates the palms and soles in a reaction called hand-foot syndrome [chemocare.com].
When I went to Disney World in 2007 I found that the entry gates use fingerprint scanners to ensure that the person using an electronic ticket is the same one who registered it. The scanner choked when I tried to regi
Do they fingerprint everyone?! (Score:2)
... entering the country. What nonsense!
Re:Do they fingerprint everyone?! (Score:4, Informative)
Fingerprint and photograph, yes -- with a few exceptions. The big one is that (most) Canadian citizens are exempt. As well, individuals younger than 14 or older than 79 can skip the ten card and mugshot.
You get the invasion of privacy even if you're just passing through a U.S. airport to make a connection to another country.
This is utterly non-news! (Score:2, Insightful)
From a medical and oncological perspective, this is very interesting stuff.
From a DHS/security/evil overlord angle, it's absolutely nothing at all.
The guy was screened routinely. He failed the screening for an extraordinary reason, and was kept for four measly hours, until they could parse and process the exception.
That's it. They didn't strip-search him, they didn't tase him, they didn't abuse him or violate his rights. They came across an exception, dealt with it, and moved on.
Or would you rather spend al
Re:This is utterly non-news! (Score:4, Insightful)
"The guy was screened routinely. "
THAT'S the problem.
Eradication of fingerprints? (Score:2)
If you want to get rid of your fingerprints, there's always pineapple juice. Much less poisonous.
My sister was held back too! (Score:5, Interesting)
My sister has Nethertons Syndrome. It's relevant implication for this case is that her skin is replaced faster than normal. This causes her to have weak if any fingerprints.
When visiting Florida for christmas last year my entire family was held back for about half an hour. Only after the "security person" had consulted his superior, and that superior had consulted yet another superior, were this 16 year old obvious thread to national security allowed to pass into America. They also tried to wipe her fingertips with alcohol. Very pleasant on what you can compare to a first to second degree burn.
Re: (Score:2)
What part of flying on an airplane requires that you have fingerprints?
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
What choice do they have? It could take 4hrs to verify someone is on such a drug. It ended well so this is hardly a controversy.
How many flights have you arrived for where a 4-hour delay wouldn't have caused huge problems for you?
Most airlines I know, you lose your flight if you don't get through security on time, and if you can't pay for a much more expensive ticket on the next flight then you might lose your entire holiday