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Passengers Cheat Flu Scan With Fever Reducers
Nguyen Van Chau, head of Ho Chi Minh City's Health Department, has revealed that many sick passengers who flew to Ho Chi Minh City used fever reducers to fool temperature scanners at the airport. The government has confirmed 26 people infected with H1N1 flu, 23 of whom came by air after traveling in the United States or Australia. State media reports that the discovery of these scanner cheaters led to the detection of several infected cases later.
How can you call a desired outcome of taking asprin (reducing a fever) with cheating?
WTF? Over?
If they avoided detection by the offending scanner, then how were they detected to be scanner cheaters?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Fever can be caused by lots of things. H1N1 isn't the only possible fever-inducing pathogen, and you can even have fever without having an infection. Preventing people with fever from travelling seems kind of an overkill.
It seems unlikely that they took the fever reducers strictly as a means of fooling the scanners. Common flu signs include aches and pains, and most of the pain relievers also reduce fevers.
Australian scientists had already pointed that.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
The article doesn't really explain whether this was deliberate cheating. Did any of these folks see a doctor who straight up told them "Yes, you have this dangerous flu virus, please avoid airline travel because we need to contain it?" Otherwise, it's not unusual for people to feel the onset of a cold or flu and take "medicine" (i.e. symptom blockers) so they can feel better and avoid missing work. Is it strange that people might do this to avoid missing a flight (and aren't airplane tickets often non-refundable?) with no intention of cheating anything? I mean, if you stopped random people in the street and asked them, I doubt most of them would even know that airliners have body-temperature scanners.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Those bastards, trying to keep their proteins from denaturing! Hang them, hang them high!
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
...can someone lend me that cool (but useless) thermal scanner so I can watch that hot girl that lives next door? That would be definitely useful.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
This is a misuse of technology and is very much security theatre. You're more likely to prevent the spread of flu by praying to the spaghetti monster. The thing is that people are panicked over this as it has been overhyped by the media. They're willing to put up with any inconvenience as long as they can trade it for a warm (but not too warm or you'll get scanned) safe feeling.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I thought tylenol, ibuprofen, and the like were pretty commonly used when people get sick. How is this news, besides the fact that they decided to implement a ridiculous screening process that is easily bypassed?
Those SOB's took asprin when they had a fever! Get 'em!!!
This comment is just continuing the bullshit that is in the article...
People didn't take fever reducers to fool the scanner. They took an aspirin 'cause they felt like crap.
So this vaunted "flu-scanner" can be fooled simply by taking Tylenol? Are you serious? Shouldn't it be assumed that anyone who is running a fever will most likely be taking fever-reducing medications?
Tell me again what the point of this scanner is?
I have a bad feeling about this...
In other news it was discovered that vampires are able to raise their body temperature high enough to fool heat cameras meant to detect the undead by drinking a gallon of hot coffee right before they pass the cameras.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
.. who are taking 'fever reducers' are not cheating as they have no way of knowing whether or not they have the H1N1 virus. Furthermore I have the uneasy feeling that at some point, 'fever reducers' will be pulled off the shelves and H1N1 vaccination will be required. JMHO
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So doing something to my own body is CHEATING?
That's what I told her :-(
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Because in our culture, your security is something that is done to you, not something in which you are actively involved. Being actively involved in your own interests would be a microcosm of self-determination, self-government, personal responsibility, and individualism. You know, those things that this country used to be all about. There is currently something of a war against those things right now, and I believe it's because they are perceived as obstacles by those who would like to see fascism in the USA. To be correctly appreciated, this must be seen not as isolated issues, but in terms of a few basic principles that determine many aspects of life.
To put that another way, you know what would really stop terrorists from hijacking an airplane? Hundreds of well-armed passengers. And no, a bullet hole will not decompress an aircraft.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
i prayed to the spaghetti monster, and i don't have the flu. ergo, it does work
If they avoided detection by the offending scanner, then how were they detected to be scanner cheaters?
Well, given that they infected other people, and eventually epidemiologists tracked them down via the people they infected...
To all those defending those who traveled while sick: I'm sorry, but if there is a travel ban because of a well publicized disease that is killing people, and you don't feel well, sit your selfish ass down in bed where it belongs. My parents raised me to stay home if I was sick, because it's beyond rude to make those around you sick. The regular flu kills kids and the elderly all the time. This one is much nastier.
Let me put it this way: if people had laptops that were infected, were booted off the network because of security software, and then defeated that security software to get online (and infected machines around them, destroying some of them)...what would you say then?
Please help metamoderate.
OK, you people have to figure out how things work under a Communist government. The higher-ups want to protect the country from H1N1, all the other Asian countries are doing it. Heat scanners are installed in all airports, with a masked nurse seated nearby filing her fingernails and ignoring the device. We've secured the country! But wait it seems H1N1 cases got through anyway. The higher-ups are furious, they were assured that heat detectors were deployed. Solution? Those shifty foreigners cheated our indigenously made infrared devices. Therefore, no punishment will be meted out as blame has been shifted. Someone always has to take the fall for mistakes, even if they were otherwise fully qualified as health director, head scientist, etc. History is full of officials who got sent to the gulag because they couldn't dodge the blame for something that didn't turn out perfectly.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
While I certainly believe tat the media has over-hyped H1N1, you have to also remember where the Scientific community's concern is.
The way it went with "the flu" that we keep hearing about in the '20s is that.
1) There was suddenly a spring flu that was both out of season and relatively mild (what we have now, and H1N1 appears to also be related to that earlier strain)
2) By the time of the Fall and the "usual" flu season, the strain from early spring had mutated dramatically making it extremely deadly (as these things go, killing 10-20% of those infected vs. the usual 0.1%). An estimated 500K-600K died in the U.S. (just to give an idea of scope).
Now, #2 MIGHT still happen, and its what those in the Infectious Disease community are afraid of, but you're right, the current version of H1N1 is relatively benign and overhyped by the media ... so far.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic)
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Why, at least since the War on (some) Drugs. You don't own your body if the government can tell you what you may or may not put into it. Likewise, you don't own your consciousness if the government can tell you that there are authorized and unauthorized ways of altering it. In both cases, you are more like a tenant of your body and of your mind, not an owner. That's one of the major reasons why you don't use manipulative social engineering to solve perceived problems, because it sets some very nasty precedents like this. Precedents which later generations, having few or no counter-examples, grow up to believe are normal and acceptable.
If the War on Drugs actually did anything to reduce the street availability of the substances it seeks to control (do the research; it hasn't), I might feel differently about it, though I doubt it because my opposition to it is rooted in principle. As it has failed to achieve its primary stated goals, I consider it completely without merit and its ill side-effects to be unjustifiable. Anyway, to answer your question, yes we have ceded control over our bodies to the government and we did it a long time ago. We traded it for a little safety that hasn't kept us any safer but has guaranteed a steady flow of money to various criminal organizations by means of the black market. Like anyone else who trades what is priceless for something that has a price, we got screwed. Not only is some buyer's remorse in order, it's long overdue.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I wish to purchase one of these fine straw men,
for placement in my cornfield.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Not for H1N1 but just for a milder flu, I took acetaminophen in mainland China(Guangdong) to get pass the checkpoint at the Hong Kong border. I had a flight leaving out of Hong Kong soon and wanted to get the hell out of China (I don't like it there).
The scanned me with a simple temp probe, check my passport and let me pass. Being held for observation at some random security check point in a strange country(to me) would have really sucked, especially given that I was not feeling well at all.
I likely spread my illness for 3 days before I even felt sick. So those checkpoints are not effective enough to matter, in my opinion.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
To put that another way, you know what would really stop terrorists from hijacking an airplane? Hundreds of well-armed passengers. And no, a bullet hole will not decompress an aircraft.
Yeah I would feel much safer with that drunk jerk behind me packing heat. And when you get delayed on the tarmac for 6 hours I am sure he won't take out his frustration on the staff. It isn't like they already have to land planes to drag off people who freak out...
Lets look at some gun stats - http://www.metro.us/us/article/2009/06/16/03/5431-82/index.xml Looks like big pro-gun southern states see 300-500% more gun related deaths than states with strong gun control like Massachusetts. Problem with giving everyone guns is that obnoxious bully or mentally damaged teen also want guns, and when one person fires or misfires do you think grandma will keep her cool and not accidentally shoot the guy who stands up to look around pulling his own gun out? As a cope I wouldn't want to enter a plin with a couple hundred panicked gun toting passengers.
The last thing they need is a pitched gun battle with 30-40 people on a plane all trying to help by shooting at that other guy who must be a bad guy, I mean everyone can spot an Afghan/Saudi. No one will mistake that darkskinned guy, or jewish lady. No one will shoot that Arabic dude "just in case". Hell, only half of Americans know who was involved in 9/11 attacks and most of them couldn't identify a Saudi Arabian on sight.
Anyone Jewish, Arabic, Dark-skinned, would be an "obvious" threat. And it isn't like that bullet will go through multiple chairs and people before stopping... http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/theboxotruth.htm I mean their tests only went through a dozen plywood walls and its not like anyone would miss while panicked and shooting at a human for the first time.
*shakes head* Keep the guns off the plane. Carrying in public is asking for trouble... People may panick when they see you packing heat, and if something does happen the right response is almost always to not use the gun. Yet that wasn't your first justification for bringing one, was it? It was to use in case of an attack , not as a deterrent. And hundreds of people shooting towards the cockpit won't cause any issues, right? I mean avionic electronics are not sensitive machines with wires running all over the plane... /end rant
Keiji Fukuda, head of flu at the WHO
Now THAT is one awesome job title!
Imagine the conversation between this guy and the person sitting next to him on the plane who didn't know any better...
(Seat 13-A) So, what do you do for a living? ...
(Keiji) I am the head of flu!
(Seat 13-A) Uhh wait, what? Who do you work for again?
(Keiji) Yes, WHO.
(Seat 13-A)
* Seat 13-A is now known as Seat 27-F