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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFDA approves computer chip for humans
FDA approves computer chip for humans
WASHINGTON Medical milestone or privacy invasion? A tiny computer chip approved Wednesday for implantation in a patients arm can speed vital information about a patients medical history to doctors and hospitals. But critics warn that it could open new ways to imperil the confidentiality of medical records.
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that Applied Digital Solutions of Delray Beach, Fla., could market the VeriChip, an implantable computer chip about the size of a grain of rice, for medical purposes.
With the pinch of a syringe, the microchip is inserted under the skin in a procedure that takes less than 20 minutes and leaves no stitches. Silently and invisibly, the dormant chip stores a code that releases patient-specific information when a scanner passes over it.
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Chip's dual uses raise alarm
The VeriChip itself contains no medical records, just codes that can be scanned, and revealed, in a doctors office or hospital. With that code, the health providers can unlock that portion of a secure database that holds that persons medical information, including allergies and prior treatment. The electronic database, not the chip, would be updated with each medical visit.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/ns/health-health_care/t/fda-approves-computer-chip-humans/
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limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Last edited Sat Dec 31, 2011, 10:48 PM - Edit history (1)
I hope it doesn't become one of those informal requirements of our society, such as having a credit card, a checking account, providing your social security number everywhere, etc.
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get the red out
(13,477 posts)I would not want to see people worrying about being "scanned" for eligibility for insurance or even a job. Who ever dreamed that credit reports would knock people out of employment but they do now. We may end up finding ourselves in a world where you can't risk medical treatment unless there is nothing at all wrong with you, so you can get "points" for that on your chip.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Trillo
(9,154 posts)In the past year I was asked to adopt a cat that had this chip implanted, and I didn't want the chip in the animal. A search of the Internet said that they could be removed. So, I called all the local vets in town. Not one of them would even consider removing it. If it was removed, one of the receptionists said after consulting the vet, it would be very expensive, they said first it had to be located. Apparently they migrate. Upon further questioning, it was actually a refusal to remove it.
http://jacques.prestreau.pagesperso-orange.fr/tortues/pdf/puce-cancers/albrecht-microchip-cancer-synopsis-1.pdf
I meant to add, that if a hospital put one in me as a condition of service, I would want to make sure they included removal of it upon discharge.
Jello Biafra
(439 posts)would never have my dogs subjected to that. Besides, you have to be at close range to detect a pet with one.
More proof that we live in a Nazi police state...wish I could leave this country minimally, more like I want to leave this planet.....
thelordofhell
(4,569 posts)![](/emoticons/sarcasm.gif)
Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel
(3,273 posts)That's right, the 99%... because I'm sure the 1% won't have to worry about getting "tagged".
Historic NY
(37,617 posts)paging Christine o"Donnell
Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)(Sarcasm)
AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)About three years ago there was a movie on television about such a system being implemented in the UK.
The movie was fiction (I assume). I can't remember why they were putting "chips" in people. It was a British film, which means it was difficult to understand.
However, chip readers were placed all over England to track people's movements. Readers were placed in train stations, bus stations, and airports. They were placed in stores, libraries, hospitals, just about everywhere.
However, these chips turned out not to be passive. They could be reprogrammed, and it turns out were being used to release deadly viruses into selected individuals.
The only purpose of embedding chips into people is to make it difficult to remove them. The necessary information could be just as easily put on a card, like a credit card, and if necessary, worn like a dog tag.
This technology suggests the same mentality and purpose of the tattooing of ID numbers on concentration camp inmates by Germany during WWII.
MilesColtrane
(18,678 posts)Your mind will either be refined or you'll be left behind.
sakabatou
(42,509 posts)jmowreader
(50,857 posts)I mean, come on: didn't anyone designing this see Demolition Man and think maybe planting chips in people was a BAD thing?