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Cancer Patient Held At Airport For Missing Fingerprints
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.
We're from the government, and we're here to help you!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Why think when you can follow protocol?
mmmm...forbidden donut
Sorry for the off topic post does anyone else get this when clicking "Read more" on every article?
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How does someone with their extremities amputated get through an airport?
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.
if I had cancer, I'd like a hug and someone to hold me also
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 Our judges have been replaced by robotic imposters, and I imagine it will get worse in the future.
Once I saw this movie, and some policemen caught Santa Claus, and he had snowflake fingerprints. Seriously. You should see it.
Qxe4
Terrible New Terrorism Drug Helps Terrorists Evade Identification And Cause More Terrible Terror.
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.
-= alphaFlight =-
This is all just minutiae, people!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutiae
We must ban anti-cancer drugs. The terrorists might use them. Terrorists could hurt children. Think of the children!
Tibbon
tibbon.com
subjects?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8070252.stm
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
As if the prints would return this quick?
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.
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.
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.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
That's 4 hours of his life he will never get back, and that's saying something for a cancer patient.
Having just lost my father to pancreatic cancer, and seeing him suffer so much from the chemo and other drugs he was taking, I can't believe that something like this would happen in an airport. It's hard enough having to deal with the cancer and the side effects of the treatement without having getting held at an airport because of your side effects! Airports might want to start treating their customers like HUMAN beings.
He should have said that the drugs were for his Goat!
Heck, where does the fingerprint image come from? I am pretty sure it was an image from the results section of my master dissertation!! I was not aware that somebody beyond me read it, much less one of the images would end in Slashdot!!
A fingerprint is an image of the fingers (duh!).
If the authorities don't like this guy's fingers and the images of his fingers, the problem is with the authorities.
The real problem is that a person's fingerprints is not a definitive unique permanent identifier, even though most people treat them that way.
Reminds me of an old episode of Battlestar Galactica 1980 where the young heroes got busted by the sheriff and accused of filing away their fingerprints to avoid identification. The flying motorcycles were cool.
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.
When did immigration started fingerprinting visitors in to the US? This person was "visiting relatives" and wouldn't need a green card or work visa, why were they fingerprinting him? Oh, yeah! because they can (invade our privacy).
... entering the country. What nonsense!
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 all day making up SHOCKING headlines for articles like, "Police do their job. Bring in suspect for questioning, and then release him after innocence proven."
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
If you want to get rid of your fingerprints, there's always pineapple juice. Much less poisonous.
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.
Bend over Biotch.
Customs officials may not verbally say it, but their attitude screams it.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Please try the buffet, yadda yadda yadda...
You would be amazed by how much grip those little ridges provide -- when my hands are like that I drop things a lot more and have to be careful when carrying glasses of water and stuff like that. I'd say the mutant power of someone with that condition is to NOT stick to things.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I wrote about this in my cancer blog 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.
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 register and an attendant had to override it. I bet that enough of the population has similar issues that it's in their training manual. I suppose it also means that people like me are a headache for anyone else trying to use fingerprints for identification.
Some of the numbness is nerve damage, particularly from the platinum-based drugs. The nerves do slowly heal, so I am getting some feeling back. In fact, now that I've been off of systemic chemo for four months I have enough feeling to realize that I lost more than I appreciated. Except for a period after a massive dose in 2005, the numbness hasn't been enough to interfere with tasks like holding a pen or buttoning a shirt. It's just been a dullness of sensation.
Today I learned that there's another explanation. According to research published in Science, fingerprints enhance the sense of touch. The ridges vibrate as they encounter bumps on a surface and transmit stronger signals to the nerve endings. So part of my numbness to texture is not just the nerve damage but the lack of fingerprints. I wonder if they, too, will regrow over time.
Capecitbine after a few passes through the liver becomes 5-Fluorouracil or 5-FU, which is the drug she took.
It played hell on her hands & feet and for several years she had no prints on her hands or feet.
It really sucks your hands & feet are very raw/chapped all the time, just moving them could cause bleeding cracks to form; its just miserable.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
I get the feeling that we are going to see more and more of this security theatre crap. From what I understand there is no independent scientific evidence that fingerprints are a unique identifying feature, no mater how much the government wishes it was. I recall several attempts by law enforcement to create "infailable methods" (the only one I can remember at the moment is "gait ID", something to do with how people walk) to identify people but eventually all of them were proven to be nothing more than an inpetus for convicting/harassing people on little to no evidence. Even the DNA methods used by the FBI have been proven to be imperfect, being vastly less accurate than the FBI claimed. Law enforcement/government/security needs to get over the falacy that there is some magical perfect ID method for finding "the bad people". (forgive my spelling errors, some moron removed OO from the PC)
the government does realize that alcohol does something of the same thing to your fingerprints. Your fingerprints become less pronounced and thus appear different when you are intoxicated.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
But it could have been weaponized cancer! Ha! Didn't think of that one, did you!?
The incident happened in December 2008.
The loss of fingerprints is not described in the packaging of the drug...It is uncertain when the onset of fingerprint loss will take place in susceptible patients.
It's a side effect of long term use. It isn't well documented. It doesn't always happen. It isn't well-understood.
---and if you are on this drug your long term survival prospects aren't particularly good. Capecitabine
The letter in the Annuals of Oncology appeared online today. Fingerprints May Vanish With Cancer Drug
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
So Was Adolph Eichmann, and he got hanged. Perhaps we should start hanging the idiots who work for TSA and customs/immigration.
At least at first, this showed up in my RSS reader as "Cancer Patient Held At Airport For Missing Finger..."
- Chuq
seriously people, its not hard -- you don't want fines from OSHA
Sir, please put these fake gloves containing fake fingerprint, don't worry they are still unique, this way should you rob a bank or something, we will be able to trace you no matter where you go....oh and btw, if you do rob a bank, don't put gloves on top of these gloves please, it makes our jobs harder.
thank you , come again
O_O
Are they just cross referencing them and then dumping them?
Or are they building a database?
Seems like if they are building a database it would get pretty inefficient quickly considering the accuracy of fingerprints;
if they are adding them to an existing database seems like it would increase dilution.
tapioca!
All I'm saying is, if somebody had stolen *my* fingerprints, I'd want them to be held at an airport, cancer patient or no.