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- <text id=92TT0092>
- <title>
- Jan. 13, 1992: Better Than Fingerprints
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Jan. 13, 1992 The Recession:How Bad Is It?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- GRAPEVINE, Page 9
- BETTER THAN FINGERPRINTS
- </hdr><body>
- <p>By Janice Castro/Reported by Wendy Cole
- </p>
- <p> Generations of American G.I.s have worn dog tags as a
- grim reminder that the U.S. military might someday need to
- identify their remains. But the Pentagon has now authorized a
- superior DNA-identification system, for which it will collect
- blood and saliva samples from all service personnel. The problem
- is that dog tags can be lost, switched or counterfeited, and
- fingerprints and dental records are not always reliable. Several
- casualties of Desert Storm, for example, went unidentified for
- weeks because of such problems. Using DNA samples taken from
- family members, though, Army experts were recently able to
- identify the remains of an American pilot killed 25 years ago
- over North Vietnam.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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