A poor chap was held by immigration officials at the US border for four hours because he didn't have any fingerprints.
The man was a cancer patient who was taking the common anti-cancer drug Capecitabine. The drug is known to have a side-effect where your hands and feet swell, peel and blister and can lead to the loss of fingerprints.
After being detained in airport customs, officials let him enter American because they decided he wasn't a security threat. But they suggested next time he carry a note from his doctor explaining the situation.
What seems ludicrous to me is that this can't be the only thing that causes people to lose their fingerprints. Surely it happens quite regularly. A really quick Google search revealed that bricklayers, secretaries, and anyone who works with lime can all lose their fingerprints over time and often don't have enough pattern left to capture a print. As we all get older our fingerprints tend to fade as well and it is common for the elderly not to have any left. I don’t have a fingerprint on my middle finger after the pad was sliced off in a freak unicycling accident. Luckily for me I have nine others that still can be read. But what happens to all these other people when they go to the US?
Is there a better security system out there that could be used given how common it is not to have fingerprints?
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2 comments:
Surely this anti-cancer drug could be a revelation for any budding criminals.
By the way, is the bit about you losing your fingerprint in a unicycling accident really true?
Sure is, and it didn't stop me getting into the States either - infact border control looked rather bored when I mentioned I didn't have a print on one finger.
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