Newspaper Page Text
Forsyth J Your "Hometown County Paper" Since 1908 J New S
,
Vol. 96, No. 189
Flu vaccine not meeting demand again
By Jennifer Sami
Staff Writer
Even after the 2004-05 shortage
of flu vaccines, United States
approved flu vaccine manufacturers
are still falling short of expectations
for the current flu season.
While the Centers for Disease
Control estimated up to 83 million
vaccines would be available through¬
out the United States by the end of
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Photos/Stephen Gurr
Above, Forsyth County Crime Scene Technician Katrina Murdock analyzes a palm print through a magnifying lens.
Palm prints can prove just as useful as fingerprints in solving crimes, authorities say. Below, Murdock uses the new
AFIX Tracker system to compare and analyze palm prints.
Palm reading paying off
Authorities look to palms for the future of crime fighting
By Stephen Gurr
Staff Writer
It’s been said the lines on a
man’s palm tell the story of his
life. For crime scene techni¬
cians, they can also tell where
he’s been and what he’s been
up to.
Palm prints, the lesser
regarded cousin to fingerprints,
have slowly but surely been
given increased weight and
regard in the art and science of
detective work. That’s evident
locally, where the Forsyth
County Sheriff’s Office has set
up a new database to store and
match palm prints of known
offenders to the scores of
prints picked up at crime
scenes.
For several years, the sher¬
iff’s office has relied on the
Automated Fingerprint
Identification System — AFIS
— to search state and national
databases for matches with* the
fingerprints found at the scenes
of burglaries and entering
autos — among the most com¬
mon incidents investigated in a
county that has comparatively
little violent crime.
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WEDNESDAY Novembei
November, shipments have been
incomplete and are arriving later. Flu
season typically begins in late
December and runs through March.
Of the 4,500 doses of the flu vac¬
cine ordered by the Forsyth County
Health Department, only 1,310 have
been received. According to Dave
Palmer, District 2 public health pub¬
lic relations and information coordi¬
nator, Forsyth County is currently
out of flu vaccine. Though he said
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“We had a large amount of
partial palm prints (picked up
from crime scenes), but no
state or national databases to
compare them to,” said Forsyth
Sheriff’s Crime Scene
Technician Katrina Murdock.
“So unless we had a suspect,
there was no way to search
palm prints (for a match).”
Palm prints are found more
often than one might think,
Murdock says. Of the 15 to 20
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another shipment could be expected
any day, the shipment will not com¬
plete the full order placed by the
Forsyth department.
Distributors, in order to fairly
meet the demand from all orders
placed across the country, have been
breaking down complete orders and
sending partial shipments.
“The problem is the government
has no control over manufacturers of
vaccines, because it’s run by private
cases each month in which
latent prints are lifted at crime
scenes, palm prints are found
in more than half, she says.
“Generally when you’re
pushing or prying something
like a window, you have to
apply pressure,” Murdock
says. “In many cases the fin¬
gertip (prints) may smudge,
but the palm will rest without a
lot of friction applied.”
Thus, the unique whirls and
Local
Local man
charged with enticing
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Page 3A
companies. We can only hope the
orders are placed when we fill them,”
said Palmer. “1 think the government
places a pretty high demand now on
manufacturers. I know that new
methods of production and manufac¬
turing vaccines have been looked at
and explored, and I would imagine
that research will continue on being
able to make vaccines quicker than
we can now. Now, it takes several
months.”
ridges that crime scene techni¬
cians look for when trying to
make a match are often clearer
and more defined in palm,
prints than in fingerprints. And
they stand up just as well in a
court of law.
In the past year, palm prints
have helped break two major
“entering auto” cases, when
roaming thieves stole thou¬
sands in electronics and other
valuables from parked cars on
Castleberry Road and in the
Polo Fields subdivision,
Murdock said.
Authorities hope to see
more cases solved using palm
prints as the county’s database
grows.
At the county jail, inmates
have been required to submit
their palm prints via an elec¬
tronic scanner for some time.
Now those prints are being
automatically transmitted to
the new local database. So far
about 1,000 “known prints”
have been stored since the
database was created a month
ago, with the number increas
See PALM, Page 2A
Opinion
Bill Shipp questions if
Ralph Reed will nix bid
for lieutenant governor.
Plage 10A
Last year, manufacturer Chiron’s
license was suspended by the British
Regulatory Authority, resulting in a
loss of nearly half of the projected
supply to America. But even this
year, Chiron, now responsible for
shipping only a quarter of the United
States’ supply, announced it will fall
short of its promised goal.
Fluarix, a SmithGlaxoKline vac
See VACCINE, Page 2A
Two drivers
over 80 killed
in two days
Elderly behind the wheel
posing safety dilemmas
By Stephen Gurr
Staff Writer
Emily Sibyl Johnson was 82 when she pulled her
Ford Tempo out into the path of oncoming traffic
Friday morning on Hwy. 20. Peggy Gough was 90
when the Toyota she was driving careened through a
and into Lake In
both instances, reaction
time, vision or other
attributes dulled by age
may have been factors in
what became fatal acci¬
dents.
The traffic deaths of
these two elderly drivers
in Forsyth County over
the Thanksgiving week¬
end brought renewed
attention to the sensitive
issue of aging and driv¬
ing. Georgia doesn’t
have age restrictions on
driving privileges, and
advocates for the elderly
say it’s in the hands of
individuals and their
families to decide when it’s time to surrender the car
keys.
“It’s a gigantic step,” says Scott Silverthorn, state
coordinator for the American Association of Retired
Persons’ driver safety program. Confronting a parent,
grandparent, aunt or uncle about their deteriorating
driving skills often takes outside help, he said.
“A lot of times the family has to get someone else
involved — whether it’s the family physician or a pas¬
tor te suggest to them it’s time,” Silverthorn said.
See DRIVERS, Page 3A
Ringing in the holiday season
V
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Photo/Ron Logan
Rodney Hollingsworth of Atlanta collects
money for The Salvation Army Monday in front
of the Gumming Wal-Mart.
Sunny LAKE LANIER LEVELS
Date Level
NOV. 25 T 069.14 ft
Nov. 26 1069.14 ft
Nov. 27 1069.14 ft
Nov. 28 1069.12 ft
Full 1071.00 ft
High in the mid-50s. MK
Low in the mid-30s.
Minds For
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Minds For Business
Inside Today
On the Web:
• AARP driver
education pro¬
grams:
www.aarp.org
/drive
• Georgia
Department of
Driver Services:
www.dds.ga.gov