I know in vitro treatments and surrogacy have been around for many years. Yet, until I watched Israeli filmmaker Zippi Brand Frank’s HBO documentary Google Baby, I knew very little about the process of "making a baby" in a global economy. The film left me with mixed feelings and an apparent need to research some new ground.
Surrogacy, once traditionally handled by an exclusive duo, is now open to a network of egg donors, fertility specialists, embryo brokers, foreign surrogates, and even short-term wet nurses. In this brave new world of outsourcing, technology has turned the act of creating a human being into a process independent of sex while globalization is making it more and more affordable.
In the not-so-distant past, a woman who experienced trouble conceiving might pay a clinic specializing in assisted reproductive technology. "Then, she might shoot herself with stimulants and have her eggs retrieved, fertilized and implanted, hoping that science and the gods of modern fertility would conspire to impose their good will. This remains an exhausting method of achieving pregnancy, but the complexity is nothing compared to what takes place in Google Baby," says reporter Ginia Bellafante. ("Surrogate Pregnancy Goes Global," The New York Times, June 15 2010)
I definitely agree with Bellafante: new conception is not only more complex but also more morally questionable.
The cost is a major concern for those who desire surrogacy. As an example, the entire process in the United States can easily cost well over $100,000. The expense has driven customers worldwide to seek lower-priced markets.Surrogacy has now become an international business offering stiff price competition. Google Baby traces a budding worldwide industry of "producing" babies, run almost entirely from personal computers.
Surrogacy In India
India legalized surrogacy in 2002 as part of a long-term effort to promote medical tourism. Since 1991, when the country's new free-market policies took effect, private money has flowed in, fueling construction of world-class hospitals that cater to foreigners. Surrogacy tourism has grown steadily there as word gets around that babies can be incubated at a low price and without government red tape.
The Confederation of Indian Industry predicts that medical tourism, including surrogacy, could generate $2.3 billion in annual revenue by 2012. "Surrogacy is the new adoption," says Delhi fertility doctor Anoop Gupta.
"One of the nicest things about [India] is that the women don't drink or smoke," says Kristen Jordan, a 26-year-old California housewife and Delhi surrogacy customer. And while most American surrogacy contracts also forbid such activities, Jordan says, "I take people in India more for their word than probably I would in the United States." (Scott Carney, "Inside India's Rent-a-Womb Business," Mother Jones, March/April 2010)
Surrogacy is not officially regulated in India. There are no binding legal standards for treatment of surrogates, nor has any state or national authority been empowered to police the industry. According to Carney, while clinics have a financial incentive to ensure the health of the fetus, there's nothing to prevent them from cutting costs by scrimping on surrogate pay and follow-up care, or to ensure they behave responsibly when something goes wrong.
India's parliament is in the process of crafting legislation to address some of the concerns about surrogacy, but most likely any strict regulation would fall to the states and be almost ineffective. Carney believes, at present, India is the Wild West of surrogacy with over 350 fertility clinics, although it's difficult to say how many offer surrogacy services since the government doesn't track the industry.
There hasn't been any effort to regulate surrogacy contracts on the receiving end, either. So long as a surrogate infant has an exit permit from the Indian government, the process for getting the baby an American passport is straightforward.
Google Baby
Gooble Baby centers upon Doron Mamet, a gay Israeli father-turned-embryo-broker, who is spurred to action by his own costly journey -- $100,000 plus -- to produce his daughter. During the filming, he's launching his business, Tammuz. (The month of Tammuz is a time given for the special ability to make substantial changes and significant transformation in many aspects of people's lives, to turn negative things into positive ones.)
The Israeli entrepreneur coordinates for Israeli sperm to be flown to the United States for the artificial insemination of American ova. It takes the viewer alongside Mamet first-hand, to witness an egg being made into an embryo by Tammuz's partner, fertility specialist Gad Levy. One scene shows many tanks, each the size of a small keg, that hold tens of thousands of embryos. ("We can't get rid of them without permission," the lab worker tells Mamet, then sighs, "They take up a lot of space.")
The frozen embryos are then transported to India, where they are implanted in the uterus of local surrogate mothers who spend their self-chosen exile in a "greenhouse" of Western lifestyle. Most mothers will spend their entire pregnancies living together in such housing provided by the clinic.
The Akanksha Clinic
The documentary chronicles the operation of the Akanksha Infertility Clinic in India, used by Tammuz, which specializes in the in-vitro fertilization procedure. The facility is run by a doctor, Nayna Patel, who is insistent that her service not become a baby factory. A 2007 Oprah segment all but heralded Patel as a savior of childless middle-class couples and helped open the floodgates for the outsourcing of American pregnancies. Patel claims a waiting list hundreds deep and receives at least a dozen new inquiries from potential surrogacy customers each week. (Scott Carney, "Inside India's Rent-a-Womb Business," Mother Jones, March/April 2010)
Dr. Patel requires that clients either be childless or have no more than one child. Patel's clinic charges about $15,000 to $20,000 for the entire process, from in vitro fertilization to delivery. All told, a successful Akanksha surrogate makes between $5,000 and $6,000—a bit more if she bears twins. If a woman miscarries, she keeps what she's been paid up to that point. But should she choose to abort—an option the contract allows—she must reimburse the clinic and the client for all expenses. No clinic Scott Carney spoke with could recall a surrogate going that route.
Patel sees the service she provides as sisterly, “one woman helping another.” Offering a cost-benefit analysis to a surrogate, she explains that the prospective mother “cannot have a child which she longs for, which you are going to give, and you cannot have a house.”
“You cannot educate your son beyond school,” she continues. “For that they are going to pay.”
"We know all the women personally. We exclude many after psychological assessments, after learning of social problems, and we make absolutely sure that the money that they earn is well spent," Patel, who pioneered the industry in India, said. (Jason Burke, India's Surrogate Mothers Face New Rules to Restrict 'Pot of Gold,'" www.guardian.co.uk, July 30 2010)
The surrogate mothers do, however, face social stigmatize. Many attempt to keep their pregnancy a secret or face being treated like social pariahs.
The housing for the surrogate mothers may be described as simple and cloistered. Some women live in a squat concrete bungalow enclosed by concrete walls, barbed wire, and an iron gate. Police once used the site as a storehouse for bootleg liquor captured in Eliot Ness-style raids. Now the building functions as one of two residential units.
Scott Carney describes Dr. Patel's Akanksha facilities: "The classroom-size space is dominated by a maze of iron cots that spills out into a hallway and additional rooms upstairs. It is remarkably uncluttered given the number of people living here—each surrogate has only a few personal belongings, perhaps enough to fill a child's knapsack. In a well-stocked kitchen down the hall, an attendant who doubles as the house nurse prepares a midday meal of curried vegetables and flatbread."(Scott Carney, "Inside India's Rent-a-Womb Business," Mother Jones, March/April 2010)
Carney reports, "Not a single surrogate I interviewed expected a vaginal birth, even though C-sections are considered riskier for the baby under normal circumstances and double to triple the woman's risk of death during childbirth. They are, however, far faster than vaginal labor—and some clinics charge clients extra for them. (Scott Carney, "Inside India's Rent-a-Womb Business," Mother Jones, March/April 2010)
In exchange for the inconvenience and physical discomforts, the surrogate mothers stand to receive a sum that's quite substantial by their meager standards (more than 15 years of average wages), but which the clinic's customers understand is a steal. After the woman gives birth, the parents fly to India and pick up the baby.
"The entire process resembles an assembly line of perfectly coordinated, non-union workers," says Lizzie Skurnick. ("HBO's 'Google Baby': Network of Surrogates, Egg Donors Remakes Childbearing," Politics Daily)
Skurnick continues, "And while Aldous Huxley's Brave New World showed test-tube babies serviced by quiet, white-jacketed technicians, the cast of baby-breeders in Google Baby is positively messy in its humanity."
Questions and More Questions
Has this nontraditional method of developing a family, an act of goodwill in many cases, evolved to a purely financial transaction? In other words, are the parents ordering the baby any different from someone ordering a television from Amazon, who presumably couldn't care less how the set was assembled?
Does the rank and power differential between the donors/surrogates and their clients make this surrogacy especially feudalistic and oppressive? Patel puts it philosophically to a prospective surrogate: "She cannot have a child. You cannot have a house. Now you can have a house." But, does renting the wombs of poor Indians create the potential for further exploitation?
What happens when there’s a disabled baby born of this process and the parents don’t want to collect what they’ve “special ordered"? (Debra Nussbaum Cohen, "Ordering a Baby Online" Israel's 'Google Baby' Comes to HBO," June 8 2010) For that matter, the documentary featured a rather offhand comment about a need for selective abortion of fertilized eggs.
What happens to the gestational surrogates when their extended families and community members find out where they have been for nine months? What type of ridicule do these parties face and will it be worth emotional price? The answer to this is especially important to Indian families.
What happens when some of these children age and learn the circumstances of their conception and birth? What laws will govern the rights of the offspring? Surely some people will demand to understand the conditions of their births.
Why do couples consider a surrogate mother the only means to a "child of their own"? Parents of an adopted child would respond that their adopted son or daughter is their "own" child, and that they could not love her any more even if she were genetically related.
Of course, the wild card, is what happens when surrogates decline to give up custody of their babies? This is the reason custody battles sometimes ensue in the U.S. All surrogates at the clinic sign a contract agreeing to hand over the baby — which reassures prospective parents, but also supports arguments that the women, many of whom are illiterate, are being taken advantage of.
Parting Thoughts
Yonatan Gher, a communications officer for the environmental group Greenpeace, and his male partner plan eventually to tell their child that it was made in India, in the womb of a woman they never met, with the egg of a Mumbai housewife they picked out from an Internet line-up of candidates.
In a clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some of the contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the signature of the clients. Gher agreed. "You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth," he said. "We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India." (Amelia Gentleman, "Foreign Couples Turn to India For Surrogate Mothers," The New York Times, March 4 2008)
History may tell the long-term value of such exchange.
What does the public need to realize about opioids and their use in the treatment of chronic pain?
First of all, people must realize that humans belong to an increasingly medicated society—all the way down to its youngest members. Take the case of OxyContin. Some doctors have become comfortable with using OxyContin as an effective medication for severe acute postoperative pain and for severe pain associated with terminal illnesses. Yet, others have also used it to treat pain of other causes, like acute back pain, fibromyalgia, and acute injuries.. Some patients quickly became addicted to this medication. (Edward Pullen M.D., "Oxycontin Should Be Prescribed Less Often By Doctors,"Drugs andPharma, www.kevinmd.com)
Since medical schools and residency programs have strongly encouraged physicians to treat pain more aggressively, opioids such as OxyContin have become popular medications as well as popular drugs of abuse. Physicians face the dilemma of trying to treat pain adequately without becoming a supplier of opioids for diversion and overt abuse by patients or family members.
Now, most people tend to associate prescription drugs as "safe products" endorsed by both manufacturers and physicians. The widespread marketing of Rx drugs has helped create immense consumer demand and has thus stimulated growing drug dependency. Sadly, many Americans, often the very young, die from drug overdose as evidenced in approximately 20,000 confirmed cases per year. Imagine the numbers if all drug-related deaths were accurately reported.
More Drugs In the 'Hippie Years'?
In fact, new research suggests that more and more people are dying from abusing or misusing drugs, including both prescription and illegal drugs. One such study found that deaths from "accidental poisonings" across all age groups are more than ten times higher than they were in the late 1960s, especially among white Americans.
"I went in expecting to see a blip (in increased accidental poisonings) with the baby boomer(s)," Dr. Richard Miech, the study's lead author and head of Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver, told Reuters Health. After all, he said, "you've seen pictures of Woodstock."
Miech said he was surprised the boomer generation's impact on the death rates was overshadowed by a "huge increase" in accidental poisoning deaths overall. He attributes this increase to the growing number of prescription drugs being taken in the U.S. by all age groups.("More People Dying From Drug Abuse," www.redorbit.com, December 25 2010)
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, nearly 7 million Americans are abusing prescription drugs — more than the number abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy, and inhalants combined. Additionally, 25% of drug-related emergency room visits are now associated with abuse of prescription drugs.
In its annual survey of teen drug use in 2005, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that OxyContin use by 12th graders was up 40 percent nationwide in just three years. Five times as many 12th graders reported using OxyContin than reported using methamphetamine. (Chris Arnold, "Teen Abuse of Painkiller OxyContin on the Rise," National Public Radio, December 19 2005)
A new, more urgent message needs to be trumpeted: all drugs—prescription or street—can be dangerous and should be used with caution and restraint, if at all.
The Problem With Opioids
Taken appropriately, opioids such as OxyContin can relieve pain. Depressants like Xanax can help with anxiety or sleep disorders, and stimulants like Ritalin can help those who suffer from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or narcolepsy. The problem lies in the phrase "taken properly." Many of the opioids are improperly distributed to those who cannot judge either the safe dosage or the effects of toxic usage. Often, "use" becomes "abuse" which, in turn, becomes "death."
For example, though marketed as a sustained release medication, as much as 30% of OxyContin is absorbed immediately and the rest is absorbed more slowly from the intestinal tract. This fairly large immediate release portion gives a prominent euphoric response, the desired response to opioids by abusers. People high on drugs will continually make costly, even deadly decisions as they obtain means to a fix. Crushing the capsules, which releases everything simultaneously, is like playing Russian roulette and risking life and limb.
Of course, taking these potent drugs without a doctor's close supervision or mixing them with alcohol or other drugs can be more lethal, as evidenced by the national increase in visits to hospital emergency departments for patients who overdosed on prescription drugs. When abused, the powerful chemicals contained in these drugs adversely affect the brain, heart, or respiratory system, and repeated use usually leads to horrible addiction.
Recent Findings With Implications
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health is conducted annually among individuals 12 and older by the federal Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration. Jennifer Havens, PhD, MPH, of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky., and her colleagues analyzed responses from 17,842 participants 12 to 17 years old in the 2008 survey. (J. Havens et al, "Nonmedical Prescription Drug Use In a Nationally Representative Sample of Adolescents," Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine , 2010)
The research found that teens living in rural areas were more likely than their urban peers to abuse prescription drugs.13.0% of rural teens reported nonmedical use of prescription drugs at some point in their lives, compared with 11.5% of respondents living in suburban or small metropolitan-area counties and 10.3% of those in urban areas (P=0.02).
Havens also reported that relative to urban youths, teens from rural areas were especially more likely to report nonmedical use of tranquilizers such as diazepam and opioid painkillers.
"While we were able to identify potential targets for intervention such as increased access to health, mental health, and substance abuse treatment, this may be difficult for rural areas where such resources are in short supply or nonexistent," Havens and her colleagues observed. (The number of deadly drug overdoses in New York City fell to its lowest point in a decade in 2008, when 666 people died, a new Health Department report says.)
Another study (Journal of Pain, April 2010) showed that men and women had similar frequencies of aberrant drug behavior but different risk factors for abuse of opioids.
"Since little has been published about gender differences and misuse of prescription pain medication, it is valuable to document whether risk factors for abuse are gender specific to some degree," said study researcher Robert N. Jamison, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital. (reported by Bill Hendrick, "Study Shows Men and Women Have Different Risk Factors for Abuse of Prescription Painkillers," WebMD Health News, April 29 2010)
Women who misuse pain drugs are more likely "to admit to being sexually or physically abused or have a history of psychiatric or psychological problems," Jamison reported.
Women who are being treated for pain not caused by cancer and who exhibit signs of significant stress should be treated for mood disorders and counseled on dangers of relying on pain pills to help them sleep or reduce stress, the researchers said.
"Men taking pain pills should be closely monitored for suspected behavioral problems," Jamison found. In addition, their pills should be counted to check adherence, and frequent urine screens also should be done.
Understanding the Problem and Saving Lives
Only through the re-education of the masses can society begin to eliminate the tragic costs of drug abuse. The real impact of proper education depends upon significant changes in policies and measures used to slay the dragon of dependence. Prevention, regulation, and treatment -- all are imperative needs that require new thinking. No simple pill will cure this problem..
1. A much broader interpretation of abuse must be recognized as prescription drugs and opioids become increasingly popular.
2. Safe Interventional Pain Management (IPM) techniques must be employed by physicians.
3. Poor clinician training must be improved.
4. A significantly greater appreciation of all risks with medications must be instilled in the minds of medical workers and patients.
5. Much more adequate and coordinated prescription monitoring programs must be established and enforced.
6. Prevention, intervention, rehabilitation, and relapse prevention must be funded as top priorities.
I stood in a quite sizable crowd at the Ohio Statehouse as part of an elated group of relatives, friends, and other well wishers who had gathered in Columbus to witness the official appointment of Dr. Terry Johnson to the 89th seat of the Ohio House of Representatives. The impressive oath of office ceremony had just concluded in chambers, and the spectators had spilled into the rotunda to pose for photos with Dr. Johnson.
I reflected on my first meeting with Dr. Terry Johnson when he had invited me to become a member of the Scioto County Rx Drug Task Force Action Team, a group formed to respond to the epidemic of drug addiction, overdose death, crime and social disruption in our county. As county coroner, Dr. Johnson, through forensic investigation, had identified the incredible number of drug-related deaths due to a mix of prescription painkillers and nerve pills — drugs that must be obtained from a licensed provider. As a result of the findings, he became a leader in the fight against drug abuse and pain clinics that have been involved in widespread distribution.
Today was a very special day for Terry, a day of personal celebration after a hard-fought victory in the November 2010 elections. As the photographers recorded the event, I thought about Colonel Johnson and his outstanding record of service: his three tours of duty in the Global War on Terror, his appointment as Joint Forces State Surgeon and State Surgeon of the Ohio Army Guard, his work as Director of the Family Practice Residency at Southern Ohio Medical Center, and his charge as Assistant Dean of Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine.
As part of the large crowd of supporters, I felt great confidence that Dr. Johnson would be an outstanding, industrious leader in the Ohio House. I was honored that he had invited me to share this special day. And, I was also proud that we had elected an honest, industrious representative.
After several minutes mingling in the crowd, I found my attention drawn to a group of SOLACE members from Scioto County. The Surviving Our Loss And Continuing Everyday contingent shares one common bond: each of the members of the support group has lost a loved one to a drug related death. Newly-elected Governor John Kasich had graciously arrived to join the group.
Before too long, I saw Governor Kasich embrace Barbara Howard, a member of SOLACE, and I knew immediately something very special was taking place. I watched as the governor, on his first day of office, consoled a tearful mother who had been faced with accepting the loss of her daughter, Leslie Dawn Cooper.
Leslie had struggled with her addictions for years before dying at age 34 of an overdose of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, on October 3, 2009. The night before, she had paid $250 in cash for the prescription at an alleged pill mill in Portsmouth, then took it to a pharmacy in Columbus, 85 miles away, because no local pharmacist would fill it.
On Cooper's way home she called Barbara and said she was going to church. "I said, 'OK, I love you, and I'll talk to you later,''' her mother said. "I got the call the next morning at 8 a.m. that she was dead.''
Since her daughter's death, Barbara has fought fearlessly for legislation against drug abuse not only because of her own tragic loss but also because of her concern over the many needless deaths due to overdose she has witnessed. She is a mother forever deprived of God's most blessed gift determined to make her daughter's passing more than just a loss in vain.
Here I stood, in a building where President Abraham Lincoln had lain in state, where future presidents William McKinley and Rutherford B. Hayes and future U.S. Supreme Court justice Salmon P. Chase had served as governor, and I felt I had just been privileged to witness a piece of living history. I honestly wondered if any other embrace offered in the statehouse had ever meant more.
The image of this mother being hugged by the chief executive of the State of Ohio will forever linger in my memory. The meaning of those moments is impossible to verbalize. I can only imagine the emotions Barbara felt in the arms of an important public official after suffering so long with her unbearable ordeal. Soon after her encounter with Governor Kasich, I also hugged her trembling body and looked into her tear-stained, smiling face, and I believe in her countenance, I saw an angelic likeness of Leslie. Nothing will convince me this event was coincidence.
"With God, all things are possible." - Matthew Chapter 29, Verse 26
Love, happiness, status, security -- we all chase these illusions as we live our lives in circles of sunny satisfaction and shady displeasure.These vague concepts remain poorly defined to us, yet we feel obligated to chase these murky ideals comprised of nothing more than millions of conceptions (and misconceptions) from our individual experience. Our lives do change and can even fail as we feel we have strayed from our course of implementing these attachments. But do we ever truly expect to steer our lives on a straight course with an even keel if our dreams are largely based on illusions?
All definitions of important acquisitions leave us floundering in metaphor and generalization. Take love for example. Love is star-crossed, passionate, blind, and bold. Love is a wild rose, a burning flame, and an ocean of emotions. Love is metaphysical gravit , a master key that opens all happiness, and an act of endless forgiveness. Does it suffice to say love is everything and nothing at all?
Nothing in our romantic or realistic concept of affection prepares us for unrequited love. Before our first falls, we seem to harbor an inability to accept love's inevitable deceptions. Anxiety, frustration, guilt, depression -- all of these negative emotions surface if love is not reciprocated. With no negative associations for love, we find ourselves alone and confused when our love is inexplicably lost.
Once soured on love, we may seek counsel and study proper behaviors that supposedly bring it back or rekindle its strength; however, the raw and boundless emotion of love, once altered, is permanently defaced by scars, some healed and almost invisible and some barely sealed marking evident repair. Even after love fails, we chase our unrealistic understanding of rediscovering perfection: an ideal love pristine and pure.
Much to our disappointment heartbreaks only serve to mature our understanding of the feeling. Broken hearts lack substance for renewal; they can only be repaired. Through our sad experiences, we must reconstruct new understandings of love to measure future procurement. Lost love brings us face to face with lost innocence, and, like a virgin bedded, we must acknowledge we have given up once-guarded parts of ourselves to others. Living through the process of losing control over love allows us to face a rank realization: much of our ideal of attaining absolute love is irreparable.
But, even after monumental grieving and cautious healing, we return to re-delineate our illusion of love, perfectly content to follow an emotional high we realize is now confined and bound in terms of passionate expectations. We even lie to ourselves about the possibility of having lost the ability to love. In truth, we understand the ability is beyond our personal control.
The new rules we set for relationships are essentially heartfelt but useless in practice while we chase new rainbows of love that will surely stir our basic drives with large doses of testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, norepinesphrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin. Once love strikes again, every heartbeat feeds the addiction. A soldier in the fog of love's combat, we dangerously open ourselves to old, deep-seated dreams and allow Cupid to strike our heart with deceptive arrows dipped in potions comprised of equal measures of affection and lust.
To accept a simple understanding of love seems easy enough, and maybe people who live a simple life can successfully do this. For most, however, the vague and metaphorical tags fail miserably. People demand respect for their many different interpretations of this emotion while misunderstanding other people's experiences with it. Isn't "you don't love..." a gross generalization steeped in personal judgment? Of course "you love." We all love. The negative judgment is often in the eyes of the beholder.
To chase love or happiness or security is noble and good. To what extent people actually acquire these things is largely debatable because it cannot be marked on a chart, on a scale, or even in an intelligent head or in a warm heart. Besides, acquisition is ongoing and unpredictable.
The nature of our desires is so fragile and prone to interpretation. As we age, we question those who find clear visions and marvel at those who question the enigmas. What can someone really say about subjects that defy definition and complete understanding? Surely, we sicken of cliche. Maybe we can best answer a riddle with a smile and a wink.
When You Are Old
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
Petals
Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.
It sounds so strange that people are shaking their heads in disbelief. The police, bank employees, and the public alike are asking themselves, "How could this happen?" Here is another account of truth that is stranger than fiction. In a nutshell, WSAZ television reports the following:
"Three robberies at one Portsmouth (Ohio) bank are likely related. That word from detectives with the Portsmouth, Ohio Police Department.
"The Charter One Bank on 6th Street was robbed just before 10 Monday morning.
"The same bank was held up on December 11 and on the 22.
"In all three robberies the suspects used the drive-thru window.
"Detectives tell WSAZ.com, the same getaway car was used in the robberies, and the description of the two suspects appear to be the same.
"Investigators also say they got some good leads following Monday’s robbery, and are now following up on those leads.
"Dispatchers say in Monday’s robbery the suspects claimed they had a bomb. (The same threat used by the criminals in the other two recent robberies.)
"The men are described to be in their early 20's driving a white Berretta. Police say the vehicle was beat up and had paint missing from the hood and the roof." ("Bank Drive-Thru Robbed for Third Time in One Month," WSAZ www.wsaz.com/news, December 27 2010)
Now, one surely questions the intelligence of the same robbers using the same vehicle and the same modus operandi successfully to hit the same location within a couple of weeks. It doesn't sound as if these fellows are master criminals by any stretch of the imagination, maybe more like a couple of characters from the Apple Dumpling Gang. And yet the robberies occurred without a hitch. Someone must be doing something right, or are security measures tight enough? Maybe the suggestions that follow could provide some help.
It Might Cost a Little, But...
How about a stolen bill or a stolen money bag implanted with a GPS tracking device? Microchips are so slim that they can be hidden in special packs of currency. Real time GPS tracking is available. These GPS devices receive information from GPS satellites in space. Once received, the information is transmitted back to a user, who can view the information. Two popular ways the GPS tracking device transmits location information is via a digital cellular network or via satellite.
Why not limit access to drive through stations? Access to bank areas can be limited with keys, entry cards, or other special identification systems. In addition, any special access to contact areas can be overridden by bank employees when they deem entry may be necessary.
Drive-thru window lanes could be electronically gated at the key access. Notification of denial of admittance to cloaked or disguised drivers could accompany close-up camera recording at the gate. In other words, no car would be admitted into the teller window area until drivers were keyed and photographed. Both of these safety devices offer evidence if security fails.
Basic Security
1. Cameras at banks should be highly visible, so potential bank robbers will know that their image will be captured. Also security cameras must be regularly maintained to assure that decent, identifiable images are being captured. What's the use of installing an expensive system that records unrecognizable images?
2. Security personnel could be employed at banks and branch banks. Security, like the cameras, should be highly visible. If possible, banks can hire off-duty police officers or other guards licensed to carry weapons.
3. Facilities can install bullet-proof glass. Protective material should be installed between the cashier's window and the area where customers stand or drive.
4. Banks should post signs stating that they keep little cash on hand and that they have effective security systems.
5. Banks or police can offer rewards for information leading to the capture and arrest of criminals.
