maybe the weirdest thing ever at an airport?
my husband and i have spent the past few weeks traveling around china, and i saw something i've never encountered before.... You are not allowed to travel domestically with any liquids at all, even the small sizes unless it is a medication. At the security checkpoints they have big signs that say if you are diabetic, you can bring through all related medications and liquids BUT that you must give them to the cabin crew upon boarding and that they will be kept in their possession for the duration of the flight. New Yorker that i am, i calmly shoved my bag through the x-ray and kept going each time we flew. i'm on a pump, so it wouldn't have been as big a deal, but the idea of my insulin vials in someone else's possession is scary to me, esp. if they were dropped or lost--what kind of recourse would/could you have? probably nothing. is someone on a 17 hour flight really going to get up and find their insulin every time they need to take a shot?
a little bit crazy, but mostly we just found it funny.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kristin on -
Wow that is crazy!
I don't even take my insulin out of my bag to be scanned and no one ever made a fuss about it.
Hope that your trip was great!
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Permalink Reply by John Smith on -
In a country like China where type-1 diabetics are extremely rare, ignorance about insulin should be expected to be widespread. How would one go about eradicating such ignorance in China?
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Permalink Reply by John Smith on
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From this emedicine article (the bold case in the paragraphs are mine, for emphasis)
Frequency
United States
The overall annual incidence has risen from approximately 16 cases per 100,000 population in the 1990s to 24.3 per 100,000 population currently and is probably still increasing. Although most new diabetes cases are type 1 (approximately 15,000 annually), increasing numbers of older children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus, especially among minority groups (3700 annually).3
International
Type 1 diabetes mellitus has wide geographic variation in incidence and prevalence.4 Annual incidence varies from 0.61 cases per 100,000 population in China, to 41.4 cases per 100,000 population in Finland. Substantial variations are observed between nearby countries with differing lifestyles, such as Estonia and Finland, and between genetically similar populations, such as those in Iceland and Norway. Even more striking are the differences in incidence between mainland Italy (8.4 cases per 100,000 population) and the Island of Sardinia (36.9 cases per 100,000 population). These variations strongly support the importance of environmental factors in the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus. Most countries report that incidence rates have at least doubled or more in the last 20 years. Incidence appears to increase with distance from the equator.5
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Permalink Reply by Mike Ratrie on -
My immediate, unresearched question: Could this figure for China be based on how they gather statistics?
Fair Winds,
Mike
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Permalink Reply by Nicolas on -
Hahaha... stupid dutch men....
Give them a shot... they will calm down ;-)
Traveling with D is really sh...
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Gobin on -
I find air travel just one big hassle and a stress-inducing experience. Gone are the days (in Europe at least since that's as far as my experience goes) when it was seen as something luxurious and the classy -- more expensive -- alternative to travelling by ferry and train, which now unfortunately cost a great deal more than the plane. It's more comfortable sitting on a bus than it is taking a flight across the Channel or North Sea.
And every country seems to carry out their security checks with slight variations.
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Permalink Reply by Cathy on
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contact the airline and make a fuss . I find that the more you fuss you get your way China or not they should have been respectfull of your medical needs. I would raise hell which is what my friend and I did when we were scanned at an airport . I think that if you fuss and iritate the right ppl you might get somewhere . Good Luck and I am with Dave at the avoid China at all costs .
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Permalink Reply by Alli on -
haha. the problem would be that this was an airport policy, not just for a specific airline. and after a few weeks there, we definitely learned that it is better to NOT make a fuss about anything in a communist (i mean, socialist) country....
but could you ever see that happening in the US? we'd throw a fit.
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Permalink Reply by Donna Heun on -
This happened to me when I was leaving La Ceiba Honduras to return to the United States. They were very concerned about my insulin and syringes. They needed to have custody of it during the flight but if I needed it, all I had to do was ask. Fortunately it was a short 45 minute flight and my supplies were returned to me when I left the airplane. El Salvadore did not do that. I thought it was weird but since it was such a short flight and I wear an insulin pump (which they were fine with) it was okay for me.
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