Slashdot Mirror
Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "In 2012, Canadian Ellen Richardson was hospitalized for clinical depression. This past Monday she tried to board a plane to New York for a $6,000 Caribbean cruise. DHS denied her entry, citing supposedly private medical records listing her hospitalization. From the story: '“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others.'"
..literally hundreds of others crossed the border illegally. USA USA USA!
We don't want no evil Canadian paraplegic terrorist to assault our defenseless citizens with kind words.
Give me your tired^whealthy, your poor^wrich/Your huddled masses^wvisa-workers yearning to breathe free^w"managed"
Only a few more words to go people; you can do it!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Does the D in DHS stand for douchebag?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
How did they get her Canadian medical records? Canada's hospitals are run by government... did the government really hand over all of Canadians' private medical records to a foreign country?
What scum.
It's not exactly a surprise at this point that the only thing keeping the DHS from telling you where you left your keys this morning is the fact that they are unhelpful assholes, not the fact that they don't know; but why would the DHS consider a depressed Canadian (whose itinerary, and thus the fact that she'd be on a boat for most of her time here, were presumably also known to them) an entry problem? Tourists, while occasionally irksome, are basically pure profit, and it's not like she's going to be sponging off our kick-ass public health system, or stealing our jobs from her wheelchair.
Is there some catch-all 'medical refusal' category left over from the good old days of TB screenings at Ellis Island that somebody felt like powertripping on? What sort of insane logic is at work here?
The US can deny anyone entry into their country for any reason or no reason.
While I think we all agree that flying like many activities is something of a privilege. But at the same time, who really thinks it's a good idea to let some preening, unaccountable bureaucrat decide whether or not you should be granted that privilege with no justification needed?
While the commenter goes on to note that US Customs and Border Protection should not have had access to that medical information (with the poster claiming that is the only "deeper issue" at stake), it's interesting how many issues this one incident bring up.
In addition, we have regulations that can block someone from flying on dubious medical grounds. And that US Customs and Border Protection has the authority to block people from merely flying through the US on their way to other foreign locations.
It's like someone knocked a whole crate of worms off the locking dock.
No carpet was left unswept in the search for terrah.
Due to her medical condition being advertised all over the internet: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-60604-911-2
That is absolutely amazing. (Not in any good way) TSA/ICE people literally have access to this stuff. It amazes me in an utterly horrifying way. That it's more international data sharing at this level should be cause for all manner of scrutiny and corrective action.
I'm sure Canadians and others are just about done with the US and what the government is up to.
She wouldn't have been singled out, so DHS must have the medical records of everyone in the province. Maybe Ontario is in the same position as BC. Our medical records have been stored in Colorado for years. That means the US Department of Homeland Insecurity can troll through them at will without even needing a warrant. You'd expect that with the Snowden revelations this door would be bolted shut, but nobody seems to care.
Maybe NSA intercepted her internet forum post titled, "Gee, I Wonder What It Would Be Like To Jump Overboard?"
USA, a country full of control freaks and paranoia.
If this is the same Ellen Richardson, a disabled author, the DHS did not need her medical records. She posted her suicidal tendencies on the internet. http://ellenrichardson.ca/ http://ellenrichardson.ca/bio/index.html
Avoiding at all costs a cure when you need treatment is not a good idea. Even if some of the side effects you cite are really irksome, most of the time the benefits of a treatment greatly offset these inconveniences.
Good to see the DHS didn't buy her story (everybody in the states knows that Canadians are all constantly cheerful).
This is basically the opposite of good advice, and none of it conforms to any experience I've ever had, or that anyone I know has had. I have a psychiatric diagnosis or two, and I've gotten treatment, and you know what? It's made my life a heck of a lot better actually getting some help. I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either.
The thing with "treatments" in scare quotes is a pretty strong indication that you're not merely unaware of the state of the art in the field, but actively avoiding any risk of being contaminated by actual information about it. And I guess if you wanna be that way on your own dime, that's your business, but when you start telling other people they should avoid basic health care services because you're afraid of them, that's sorta harmful to other people.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
It's an old wisdom, USA. you can stop proving it over and over again.
what is DHS mean?
I'm not sure about Canada but to get a Visa Wavier from Australia for the US you get asked about you mental health when filling it out. If you had attempted to commit suicide and you are still on medication for the condition, then I can't see how you can tick the no box and not be lying. I presume you would them be informed about the extra procedures you would need to complete to enter the US.
What I am trying to work out here is how she got to the border without this being flagged earlier.
Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
While it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise to find out that her physical disability (paraplegia) might have had some affect on her mental wellbeing over the years, is it not just a little bit disingenuous to make it the first word of the headline, implying that it was her physical disability rather than her mental illness that caused the issue at the border?
You wouldn't write the headline "Black man arrested for insider trading" would you?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
There are plenty of cruises that will leave from Britain, mostly Southampton. 1. You avoid idiocies like the one in the article. 2. There are no Americans on board!!!! Or only those that want to avoid Americans.
Let's be honest, they're a pain in the arse and the last people you would want near you on a relaxing holiday.
This is basically the opposite of good advice, and none of it conforms to any experience I've ever had, or that anyone I know has had. I have a psychiatric diagnosis or two, and I've gotten treatment, and you know what? It's made my life a heck of a lot better actually getting some help. I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either.
Yet. And pray you don't ever have to deal with law enforcement - no matter if you are victim, witness or suspect. You can be 100% sure your treatment will be immediately dug up and used to discredit anything you say.
That creature was no bull dyke.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of bull dykes, at all. I've no use for them, and they have no use for me. But, a bull dyke is a woman, after all, and human.
That creature you refer to, who was running DHS, is a full fledged fascist pig, with an agenda of her own. She has no love for the United States, or any segment of the country's demographics.
As little as might like bull dykes, I would have preferred that there actually WAS a militant lesbian bull running DHS.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
There actually is valid reason to assess people's mental capacity and mental state though. A lot of the centrists and right wingers are agreeing that maybe it would make sense to keep crazy people from acquiring weapons.
The problem is though, as you hint, that left wingers are going to define "crazy". Already we see children being taken into custody for the act of play acting in schools.
Bite a pop-tart into the shape of a gun, and school officials call in the cops. Imagine that. Point a finger and say "POW", and you're marked for life as a crazy person prone to violence.
I suppose that some liberal will read your post, and mine, and be begging for the opportunity to drag us onto an analyst's couch.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
So if we take what you said, and what the other person said, the obvious answer is that he is right; you should avoid diagnosis and hospitalization, and seek out a black market doctor so you can still get treatment. The treatment isn't the dangerous part, it is the diagnosis and hospitalization.
And give us a constitutional-based government with elections.
The point is that the NSA knows about everyones personal medical records. And they abuse that information.
Our southern border remains as porous as sandstone. No one knows, or cares, how many people are infiltrating on the southern border. No one cares what their mental state might be, no one gives the slightest thought to their loyalties, or their purposes for crossing the border.
But, we must prevent some Canadian from entering the United States who just might possibly could do harm to herself!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
this is extremely ignorant and dangerous advice
all of the concerns this idiot lists do not even begin to compare to the relief of getting psychiatric care for your condition
please mod the malignant and stupid comment above into oblivion
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The US has access to fingerprint, wants & warrants, criminal records etc. The medical information is not accessible by DHS, nor are expunged (juvenile records) -- although the fingerprints would still be on file with no link to anything which if you don't explain properly will cause problems. The hospitalization is probably linked to one of these accessable records.
Going to a therapist instead of a PhD and paying out of pocket is probably the safest option.
And I also don't think the full story is being told here -- the only time people are hospitalised (in Canada) is if they threaten suicide, or to hurt their children, or something.
Either of those will certainly cause DHS to raise an eyebrow at you. But I'm still not convinced that would be enough to get you barred from entry either...
This reminds me of a former co-worker of mine at a university in Britain. My co-worker was Indian, held an MSc and a Research Fellow position at said university, while also being halfway through a PhD at the same university.
He was scheduled to attend a conference in the US together with our line manager, but had to cancel as the US blankly refused him entrance on the grounds that the risk of him becoming an illegal immigrant was too high. Letters from the university did not help.
Now, you may well be proud of your country, but is it really realistic to expect someone to be so desperate to live in the US that they will drop a relevant, career-progressing and decently paid job in another Western country to work in the kitchen of a golf club as an illegal immigrant?
He now ironically works in the UK for a large, very high-tech US company.
tHEY want people to hate the US so foreigners think we are all assholes.
The state of the art in the field is medication. The drugs have changed over time, but drugs have been the first line of treatment for at least 40 years now. I have both experienced myself, and witnessed in others the indescribable suffering and agony that can occur due to drug side-effects, and those that appear due to withdrawal of the drugs after long-term use. Psychiatry would have you believe, I suppose, that the central nervous system is endlessly plastic, and can rapidly adapt and respond to medications being added and removed as one pleases. For the majority, perhaps this is true - but there is a sizable minority who find their mental health deteriorate the longer they are on the medications, and then discover (to their horror) that they cannot discontinue the drug without terrifying mental and physical symptoms, far worse than the original illness. If it should happen to you, psychiatry absolutely _will not_ have your back, or really anything to offer you, as even the drug manufacturers themselves do not know how the medications affect the brain long term.
One might argue that any treatment has risks, but after experiencing what I've experienced, I think people should understand what kind of risk they're really taking. For my part, I do not consider this kind of medication Russian roulette to be a "basic health care service."
Get a visa, even if one is not "required" for tourism...
Absolutely disgusting and discriminatory. How the hell did they get the records?
I have a psychiatric diagnosis or two, and I've gotten treatment, and you know what? It's made my life a heck of a lot better actually getting some help. I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either
Except now you can't be a pilot, or get any of a number of jobs that ask whether you've been treated for depression (most of them). So you are unemployable, and have limited entertainment options. Avoid getting help, it's the only sane thing to do.
Learn to love Alaska
Except now you've not killed yourself, or lost your job because you just didn't turn up to work for six months, and you still can't be a pilot. The downside to not getting treated for depression is much worse than not being able to be a pilot, even if that's all you've wanted to be your whole life. You're like one of those cancer-quacks who think everyone should avoid doctors and just eat loads of blueberries. Mental illnesses are equivalent ot physical illnesses in their effects, and it's only prejudice that makes you tihnk different. I very much doubt you'd advise someone who had an epileptic fit not to seek medical attention because it means they couldn't be a truck driver any more.
The DHS would never have let those religious nutjobs in.
I did my Peace Corps service there, in a little rural village called Uh OH! Gary Busey Fan Shocked, Disgusted To Find Out That The Ink In His Autograph Is Actually WHAT?!
I do not think she should have been denied entry but I doubt it was due to some database sharing issue. She has a website with this information listed below so any agent checking on her manually could have found it.
http://ellenrichardson.ca/bio/index.html
Where I live (British Columbia), our provincial government has contracted a US multi-national to maintain our public health records. This caused considerable controversy at the time, including an unsuccessful court challenge.
It should come as no surprise to any Canadian that the US has access to their health records when we're paying a US company to maintain them.
I think it cannot be a coincidence that an organization that has some kind of "internal/state/etc. security" in its name, turns out to be extremely evil, harassing, arbitrarily strict towards deemed suspects and so on. After all, for DHS translated to Russian, KGB is pretty accurate translation.
The DHS official, when done denying entry said to her, "Sorry, eh."
Silence is a state of mime.
From the story she tried to commit suicide. This is a criminal offense in Canada! All criminal records are shared with the DHS. If you have one criminal note on file you will be denied entry to the US. One of my friends was charged for smoking weed 20years ago but the charges were later dropped. They still had a note saying he was initially charged and couldn't go on his business trip. A pardon on file can clear your name.
It goes along fine with the rest of our transition to a banana republic. Get used to it.
Or did you think you were voting against power mad bureaucrats, in the last few major elections?
They can successfully treat you without giving you an official label on paper that will stick forever.
From TFA:
'U.S. Customs and Border Protection media spokeswoman Jenny Burke said that due to privacy laws, “the department is prohibited from discussing specific cases.’’'
If only they were always so scrupulous in observing privacy laws.
Would like to thank the NSA, TSA, etc ... for the kind support the US provide for tourism all around the world (outside of the USA).
What is interesting in the article is that not only has the border control access to private info, which is really not surprising, probably some fine line along the agreements to share credit cards info, etc ... ... (BTW being paraplegic is kind of depressing, so small wonder she needs some feel good medications). ...) ...
But one would believe that the Border Control agent has some discretion in it's handling of a situation, and it's is quite obvious that even a severely depressed paraplegic going on a quite expensive cruise is not really going to be very dangerous
So I could understand that if a six foot muscle man with a spetsnaz tee-shirt, nationalistic brochures in his bag and an history of violent psychotic attack against others is turned away (would still feel uneasy about "how do they know", but would understand the feeling
But that lady ?
So I feel that they do it "just because they can"... It must be incredibly boring to vet thousands of people on a daily base .... and nothing ... still nothing ...
so I guess anybody even slightly "off" could get it, just because it is a break in the routine...
And I suspect that the "bad guys" have "mules" to make this happen...
Ghee just feeling much less safe right now :-(
If you like your HIPAA regulations....well, errr, fuck you.
I don't want to be on a plane with someone who potentially has a history of clinical depression.
This is like the fourth time in this article I have seen this. She wrote a book that was published something like 4 years ago, but yet the DHS knew about something that happened last year. Holy shit do you people pay any attention to what is going on? Or did you skim the summaray and then off to googling in the hopes you would earn some modderations if you brought back a tasty treat.
You people sometimes, no fucking common sense.
You have to be joking! This woman couldn't get on a plane because he had been hospitalized and treated? What's next, if you have ever had a medical treatment or doctor visit you can't travel? It seems everyday when I ready slashdot or watch ABC news I just lose the very little remaining respect I have for the US.
Small wonder.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here... it seems so obvious to me. The first hit for her name + city on google talks about her depression! Not just the page itself, in the goddamn description meta tag (as of yesterday, that could be different today because of the story)! It seems to me that border agents may just be Googling people when they want to.
I'll counter your anecdote with mine. A ridiculous attempt at diagnosis followed by a prescription for debilitating zombifying SSRI medication. This at a leading institution too. No thanks.
Name one disorder than can be "cured" by a psychiatrist.
We are all responsible to some extent for letting our airports be taken over by inept government employees who enjoy unfettered power to increase their "security" measures.
we have the false widow spider keeps popping up, it is unlikely to kill a healthy person with medical attention but it is still poisonous. and they are in the uk, and i think they are even native to some parts? and aren't there tarantulas in Italy?
Indeed that is the proper question. Does outlawing guns mean that you've assured bad guys that the law-abiding citizens are now defenseless victims, or will the criminals stop commiting crimes? The UK did ban guns, so we can actually see what happens.
Comparing the five years before the ban and the five years after, violent crime doubled. Murder increased about 70%. Rape increased by about 80%, as I recall. I can link to all the exact numbers if anyone cares to see them, but the overall trend is extremely clear - you should ban guns if you want more rapes, murders, and robberies. You should support self-defense if you prefer less violent crime.
This document has a table of the exact numbers before and after, with links to the official sources:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wok85h6ctfwjwam/comp1_assignment2_evaluative.odt
Who gives a sh*t. Boo hop go cry to your Mommy
It's an Open Source Universe: believe these nonsense storied or co-create your own reason how/that something like this could/did/can happen - then steer your belief to reinforcing this creativity - this will in essence greatly enhance the layer of abstraction in your mind's framework - which you can develop and learn how to use in other more creative ways.
Real clinical depression is a life-threatening illness.
My treatment as a British citizen in transit via USA to Mexico has made me decide never to travel there again. Hopefully they will realise their errors when people from "friendly" countries don't apply for visas anymore.
Just seal the border.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Here's the ONLY statement in the article:
"“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others."
This entire story is based on the unsupported word of a single person, who is involved in the story.
The story goes on with speculation, and citations of immigration laws, and so forth, but no actual confirming information.
So we have ZERO independent confirmation that this is why she was turned away, if in fact, she was. Perhaps she decided that she didn't want to go on the cruise, and was looking for an out that would allow her to collect on trip insurance (if she has some). Perhaps she wants to raise awareness, or seek publicity for other reasons.
The prejudice against any person who has ever suffered from depression or any other mental illness is severe. That is why most mental patients do not reveal their history. By forcing revelation of this medical issue these folks are going to be barred from all kinds of job opportunities and have a social stigma for life. Even worse the prejudice is so blatantly obvious. Here we have anti terror law enforcement acting against a mental patient when there has bee no terror issue at all against the US by mental patients unless our government is saying that Muslims are insane.
And being labeled "dangerously insane" for the rest of your life is a horrible punishment for seeking help.
Learn to love Alaska
So, if you don't see a doctor for depression, you'll end up dead. How often? 100%? 1%?
Learn to love Alaska
That the usual slashdot turkeys don't even seem to be noticing: how did US DHS get copies of those records?
mark
Especially considering the government is already subverted from the will of the majority. They need to be weeding out the bad guys internally first. Ignoring the biased reported polls, from an informal survey of everyone each of you readers actually know, does anyone know, personally, someone who thinks the TSA is a good idea? Not even a majority, just a single person? I know that everyone I have ever talked to has said it is stupid, useless and completely against their wishes. And that's not to mention all of the other stupidity going on that no one seems to be in favor of. Also, it is across the board from my redneck, gun in the rack across their pickup window, co-workers to the very liberal pro-gay, pro-vegetarian librarian I chat with. I can't seem to find anyone, other than my congress critters that will defend any of the anti-terrorism, pro-spying actions our government is doing. And even the congress pukes are obviously sending out form responses that they don't even believe in and can't defend when questioned in person, other that more rote memorized parroting. It not even like Obamacare or immigration, where I can find a broad range of opinions, with some rational, well thought out arguments on both sides. The culture of fear we are being force fed seems to be universally despised.
My mod points just expired, but this is genuinely insightful. I, as well, cannot think of a single person I know who would say the TSA is anything but a monumental waste of taxpayer dollars. We're supposed to be a democracy of a sort, so why does idiocy like the TSA still exist, with powers that even seem to be constantly expanding? How does that happen??
How, indeed? It's just more proof, if any was needed, that the will of the American people no longer has anything at all to do with how our Government actually acts. How did it come to this? Not only have we lost, or are in the process of losing, most of the things that made this country great to begin with, but somehow along the way we've also managed to surrender the power to do anything about it. History shows that such power, once surrendered, is seldom if ever regained.
I guess this is just what the view looks like from the bottom of that slippery slope everyone was always talking about.
This woman isn't depressed because she is paraplegic. She is paraplegic because of her depression. One of her three suicide attempts caused her disability.
The DHS knows that she has a greater than average risk of being a suicide bomber. You might argue that she doesn't fit OTHER criteria, or that the risk was great enough, or that for whatever reason the risk isn't important enough to deny entry to the USA... there is also a big and legitimate concern of how the DHS has this information. However, by some standard it is the job of the DHS to deny her entry based on this woman's mental health circumstances. By that standard, they did their job well.
Why is it that patients do not have digital custody of their medical records? If you change primary physicians then generate a new escrow key.
Here in Canada, we're well-known US ass-lickers. So it's about time we wake up about what's going on in the US when our little lives are affected by their tyranic pollicies.
I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either.
Well, let me counter your anecdote with my own:
I developed gallstones after consuming a low-fat diet for a year and a half. Due to the fat-free diet being suddenly switched to a diet including fat, the condition appeared suddenly rather than gradually as would usually be the case. So I'd get intense pain between my abdomen and thorax which would persist for 30 to 60 minutes before disappearing. Due to the long wait in the local emergency room, this always ensured that the pain was gone before I was seen by a doctor, who would ask me a few questions like "does the pain only occur after eating certain foods" to which I'd answer "no" as the problem appeared so suddenly that I hadn't noticed any correlations with any particular foods. Then they'd flip through my medical record, see a page from 15 years earlier when I was a teenager, and conclude that I must have simply had heartburn and my insanity had caused me to flip out over nothing.
I went to the E.R. about 5 times because of this, with each doctor being equally willing to assume that I was simply too stupid to understand what heartburn was, and that I was exaggerating the level of pain.
Finally, one day the pain became so intense that I felt as if my abdomen was about to explode, and while waiting in the E.R. for a doctor to get around to seeing me, I enjoyed intense muscle contractions that were apparently the result of my body attempting to deal with that pain somehow -- perhaps my abdomen was about to explode and it felt the need to contain the pressure for all I know. Anyway, after about 30 minutes, the pain finally went away again, and I was so weak from the muscle contractions that I couldn't so much as roll over on my own. Eventually a doctor showed up to look at me, and proceeded on the usual "I'm going to poke you in the abdomen now" routine which usually led to nothing at all since they couldn't be bothered to see me before the condition went away, but this particular time there was a bit of pain which only occurred when he released pressure on a part of my abdomen, which seemed to cause him concern and so he ordered a CT scan, though which they finally determined that I had gallstones, and so finally they decided to admit me and give me some morphine.
However, were it not for that one little bit of pain that still remained when the doctor came to see me, it's quite fucking likely he would have just sent me home because I was crazy and this would have continued until one day it managed to kill me. There's some sort of blood test for the condition, I don't recall what the test is, but apparently my score for it was some sort of record according to the reaction of every doctor who looked at my chart. I really think I could have ended up dead had things gone just a little bit differently, and I blame it entirely on doctors looking at a previous psychiatric condition and using it as an excuse to ignore anything they find too difficult to diagnose.
The interesting thing about all of this is that there's some common belief that the people you need to keep a psychiatric diagnosis secret from are your friends and family who will shame you, but in my experience friends and family don't give a rats ass because they actually know you. The only people you need to keep it secret from are people who are going to use it as a quick and easy way to judge you, like doctors, or as this article shows, government officials.
In wars/conflicts you get IEDs. You get some poisonings, a few knife attacks, and occasional bombs from random crazies. You get a significant fraction of nutjobs shooting people intsead of using other methods. It's easier, not only physically but morally; you don't have to walk up with someone and stick a knife in them and watch them bleed, but you get to see them fall down. And the people who shoot a number of people and, usually, themselves, must get some sort of enjoyment out of it or they would just kill themselves and leave everyone else alone.
The real problem is that for a lot of people and a seriously unreasonable number of Americans (the gun owners who think they have toys not tools) guns make them feel special and powerful whether they use them or not. There is nothing to prevent people who are known to be crazy from getting guns in many parts of the US (even here in Canada a known nutjob (Fabrikant) was able to get guns through a bureaucratic error and through his wife while he was barred from owning one).
Not a lot of people are crazed mass murderers but the vast majority of crazed mass-murderers use guns.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Sorry all you Americans, you're great guys (mostly) and all that but...
The problems with this idea are: 1. It actually makes sense and could work; and 2. it would anger or inconvenience the billionaires and corporations who provide our politicians with the wealth they came to Washington to acquire. Truly, we have the best government money can buy. The corollary is that since most of us voters don't pay our politicians directly, they pay as little attention to us (whether dem, repub, or whatever) as possible.
Medical records, especially of certain kinds of injuries, are highly desired by the various security services. Medical organizations resist releasing them and have to be legislated into, for example, reporting possible stab and gunshot wounds. Other organizations, which purport to keep medical records securely, grant full access to their DBAs and sysadmins.
In the era of 8" tape, such an organization gave used but unerased tapes to a local university, much to the surprise of a close friend who chanced to read a "scratch tape" and found a list of STD victims.
As a contractor at such an organization, I or any one of my colleagues could have walked off with a modern thumb-drive full of database dumps, rather like a U.S contractor of note.
Gee, I wonder if one of his other thumb-drives is full of Canadian medical records?
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
This needs ESCALATION by the Canadian embassy and be brought to the UN !
A DISGRACE that defames and makes a mockery of American democracy !!!!
Depression is a VERY complex condition. There are many types of it with constantly varying seriousness. You may feel functional one day and suicidal the next.
Therefore I would be surprised if it is even possible to make an accurate statistic on what is your chance of commiting suicide if you do not seek help. In my opinion, for clinical depression that number is close to 100%, but that is just my uninformed opinion.
Regardless of depression type and severity, even if it does not lead to the demise, it is still a very dibilitating condition that leads to very negative life experience and poor decision making. And since it tends to get worse over time, it is important to get it under control as soon as posssible.
Currently the best first step is to seek proffesional help. It would be interesting to hear your opinion on what you reccomend as an alternative. Keep in mind "Just feel better!" approach does not work and is insulting to the sufferer.
Keep in mind "Just feel better!" approach does not work and is insulting to the sufferer.
Do you have a degree in psychology?
I do.
Have you ever been diagnosed with depression?
I have.
So I'm curious what your qualifications are on what works and what doesn't. Is it from reading things on the Internet? A Discovery special once? A relative that had it?
"Just feel better" does work. When administered properly. As a casual comment from a nosy neighbor or well-meaning relative, yeah, it's worthless. But as part of a treatment plan of words-only, it's pretty effective. I've avoided a clinical diagnosis, because if that happens, I might as well be a convicted murderer (jobs can ask about it, as can insurance and others).
Why do you want to know an alternative? So you can rip it apart, based on your expert knowledge? Then Fuck You. If you need help and are reaching out, then send a private message and I can unofficially council you. I expect it's the former, so that answer stands.
Learn to love Alaska
I imagine they also breathed in oxygen and put out carbon dioxide! Do you have any fucking clue just how commonplace depression is?
Were they afraid she would crash her weelchair into a building? She's not even going to the US for fuck's sake...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Perhaps CBP is trying a little too hard to make up for recent very public failures?
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2013/10/sex-offender-who-fled-to-seattle-is-near-preschool/
How did the US get CANADIAN private medical records anyways. legally? and how can illegally obtained records be a basis for refuising anyone? And Why the fuck is 60 minutes not on their ass? What a rotten goddam country.
Your post is considerably exaggerated. Caffeine is quite a bit stronger than many of the most common antidepressants. Look up their mechanisms how they act on the brain. I've used both and can confirm.
I don't know what you are blabbering about but all countries in Western Europe have free speech codified. Getting a search warrant here is more difficult as is showing up at someone's door with a SWAT team. And yes we're allowed to defend ourselves but not to the extent of having enough guns to fight a minor war Also we don't refuse people because of a medical history. Probably because we actually welcome visitors.
I expect that her information being online is surprisingly completely irrelevant. They're not the type to run google searches or check author biographies for public information. Not nearly standardized enough for them, too much manual noise to filter through. They'd pretty much have to used purloined databases.
Having lived through McCarthyism, I used to feel that way, but when I see the direction our Politically correct country is taking , I'd take McCarthy over the DHS any day even, if he was a nut job. He was far more rational and consistent than DHS.
Since when does the U.S. deny entrance for medical reasons? I can see keeping someone out for quarantine reasons, temporarily, but any other reason is wrong. How do they get to the Mayo Clinic, if they need help there? How do they get a transplant which they can't get in their home country?
The DHS and the INS need to go read the plaque on the Statue of Liberty. I think this woman falls under the "Tired" category.
So I'm curious what your qualifications are on what works and what doesn't. Is it from reading things on the Internet? A Discovery special once? A relative that had it?
I do not have a degree in psychology. I have been diagnosed with depression. The statements I made come from my first-hand experience. I also have a relative that shows strong signs, but has not been diagnosed since he is too damn proud to admit that something is wrong and see someone.
Why do you want to know an alternative? So you can rip it apart, based on your expert knowledge? Then Fuck You. If you need help and are reaching out, then send a private message and I can unofficially council you. I expect it's the former, so that answer stands.
I wanted your opinion not to tear it apart, but to have a more constructive exchange of opinions. Slashdot is full of posts how something does not work, but without specifying what they think does. The posts with "In my opinion x, y and z should help, rather than s, t, u" are much more insightful rather than "x is a waste of time". The former make for a much better discussion. Isn't a discussion is why both of us post in this place?
What works is to set goals. "I know now is hard, but can you go until our meeting next week, making it to work every day? Set your alarm, get up at 7. Shower, shave, brush teeth, get dressed, and go in to work. When you get home, read the paper and list the three most interesting stories of the day, and give me a synopsis of them in an email, then eat and read or watch TV until you are ready for bed."
Having specific goals and things to do will keep them busy, and their mind off their troubles. If the troubles are temporary (work related or such) then they'll pass, or they'll get into a habit that copes with them. Of course focusing it on things that matter to the person is important. I just came up with a generic example. Someone with a vegetable garden could spend more time there, or other appropriate acts. Something productive, but mostly mindless is a good thing.
Learn to love Alaska
Just because U.S. citizens kill people more then other countries AND have better access to hand guns does not mean we should blame guns or gun murder statistics. Better statistics that do not lie would be all murders.
Guns, in general, protect people who otherwise cannot protect themselves.
The U.S. people are just as glad to kill each other with knives and clubs. Very little thought comes from people who are disenchanted from poor working conditions, suffering from the obviously great disparity in our country, and struggling to survive once they are kicked to the curb when they become less useful to the work force.
The more incidents of random marginalization instead of human compassion we have the more instances of out lash. Some instances of extreme out lash are also marginalized in the press instead of analyzed at face value; people are not happy with the way things are running in this country!
Rampant corporate greed is leading to short sightedness in all by the best companies.
If anything, we should be pleading for help from the other countries because changing it from within is becoming an increasingly wasteful process which dooms ourselves to a negative feedback cycle.
"Help, our country is destroying the planet, hurting its people, and is lead by insane, greedy, control freaks who inherited the wealth of their parents!"
Because the counting hadn't begun yet. For "security" USA, everything started on september 11, 2001. That is year 0, day 0. Everything before that is dark territory, everything after that is fair game.
So as far as DHS is concerned, she never attempted suicide in 2001.
It's only logic.
They should have their spinal cords clinically severed and be turned into permanent paraplegics, without social security or medicare benefits allowed.
let them panhandle until they die