This is just fucking brutal.
To get the full horror of this Lancet story from Strange Attractor, via BoingBoing, a little medical knowledge is required. An anal fistula is not a pleasant experience: it’s a channel or hole in or around the anus and/or rectum caused by infection or abscess. Even doctors try not to do a internal exam of infected fistulae:
“Even digital examination may be impossible because of extreme tenderness.”
and a seton is a medical device inserted in the anus to close off such a fistula.
Ouch, ouch, ouch. To have a condition like that must be excruciatingly painful. Sitting for hours on a plane must hurt like buggery, if you’ll excuse the pun.
Now imagine being in such exquisite pain and some min-wage, medically-unqualified Homeland Security goon at an airport forcibly sticking his finger up your sore ass and trying to pull that device out in case it’s a bomb.
Yes, I’m wincing too:
2007; 369:370 Correspondence
Homeland security reaches the anus
“I wish to bring to your attention difficulties one of my patients recently encountered when entering the USA. He is a 48-year-old man with a fistula-in-ano managed with a long-term seton to control perianal sepsis.
[…]
On arrival in New York in August, 2006, for a holiday, the patient was interrogated by immigration officials, then examined and searched. The presence of the seton gave rise to much concern, I assume because of a suspicion that a drug package or terrorist weapon was in some way attached to it. A rectal examination was done, during which the examining official pulled very hard on the seton, causing severe pain, but fortunately not damaging the anal sphincter muscles encircled by it.
The patient was refused entry into the country unless the seton was removed. Given the somewhat stark choice, he chose removal of the seton, which was done by a doctor at the airport who claimed never to have come across one before. The patient now requires an examination under general anaesthetic to insert a replacement.
I thought I should highlight this rather bizarre manifestation of “homeland security” because I suspect that it might become a more frequent problem. I suggest that any patient with a seton who is planning to travel to the USA or any other country where they are likely to be searched in this manner should carry a letter from their specialist explaining the nature of their condition and treatment.
I would have left the country first. Put myself through that for a holiday?
It’s nothing but state sanctioned assault, if not a species of torture. What’s next, the compulsorily opening up of fresh surgical scars to check there are no terroristic lite-brites hidden inside?
[*Anticipating the troll: Yes, I know you don’t want me anyway.]
