This is gonna get alot of people heated
#1
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Thread Starter
This is gonna get alot of people heated
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/.../#.TvxShDVv-Ai
Cliffs: The Food and Drug Administration approved an implantable computer chip that can pass a patient’s medical details to doctors, speeding care. Conspiracy theorists and Big Brother Watch groups will flip out all over the world!
FDA approves computer chip for humans
WASHINGTON — Medical milestone or privacy invasion? A tiny computer chip approved Wednesday for implantation in a patient’s arm can speed vital information about a patient’s 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.
Think UPC code. The identifier, emblazoned on a food item, brings up its name and price on the cashier’s screen.
Chip's dual uses raise alarm
The VeriChip itself contains no medical records, just codes that can be scanned, and revealed, in a doctor’s office or hospital. With that code, the health providers can unlock that portion of a secure database that holds that person’s medical information, including allergies and prior treatment. The electronic database, not the chip, would be updated with each medical visit.
The microchips have already been implanted in 1 million pets. But the chip’s possible dual use for tracking people’s movements — as well as speeding delivery of their medical information to emergency rooms — has raised alarm.
“If privacy protections aren’t built in at the outset, there could be harmful consequences for patients,” said Emily Stewart, a policy analyst at the Health Privacy Project.
To protect patient privacy, the devices should reveal only vital medical information, like blood type and allergic reactions, needed for health care workers to do their jobs, Stewart said.
An information technology guru at Detroit Medical Center, however, sees the benefits of the devices and will lobby for his center’s inclusion in a VeriChip pilot program.
“One of the big problems in health care has been the medical records situation. So much of it is still on paper,” said David Ellis, the center’s chief futurist and co-founder of the Michigan Electronic Medical Records Initiative.
'Part of the future of medicine'
As “medically mobile” patients visit specialists for care, their records fragment on computer systems that don’t talk to each other.
“It’s part of the future of medicine to have these kinds of technologies that make life simpler for the patient,” Ellis said. Pushing for the strongest encryption algorithms to ensure hackers can’t nab medical data as information transfers from chip to reader to secure database, will help address privacy concerns, he said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday announced $139 million in grants to help make real President Bush’s push for electronic health records for most Americans within a decade.
William A. Pierce, an HHS spokesman, could not say whether VeriChip and its accompanying secure database of medical records fit within that initiative.
“Exactly what those technologies are is still to be sorted out,” Pierce said. “It all has to respect and comport with the privacy rules.”
Applied Digital gave away scanners to a few hundred animal shelters and veterinary clinics when it first entered the pet market 15 years ago. Now, 50,000 such scanners have been sold.
To kickstart the chip’s use among humans, Applied Digital will provide $650 scanners for free at 200 of the nation’s trauma centers.
Implantation costs $150 to $200
In pets, installing the chip runs about $50. For humans, the chip implantation cost would be $150 to $200, said Angela Fulcher, an Applied Digital spokeswoman.
Fulcher could not say whether the cost of data storage and encrypted transmission of medical information would be passed to providers.
Because the VeriChip is invisible, it’s also unclear how health care workers would know which unconscious patients to scan. Company officials say if the chip use becomes routine, scanning triceps for hidden chips would become second nature at hospitals.
Ultimately, the company hopes patients who suffer from such ailments as diabetes and Alzheimer’s or who undergo complex treatments, like chemotherapy, would have chips implanted. If the procedure proves as popular for use in humans as in pets, that could mean up to 1 million chips implanted in people. So far, just 1,000 people across the globe have had the devices implanted, very few of them in the United States.
The company’s chief executive officer, Scott R. Silverman, is one of a half dozen executives who had chips implanted. Silverman said chips implanted for medical uses could also be used for security purposes, like tracking employee movement through nuclear power plants.
Such security uses are rare in the United States.
Meanwhile, the chip has been used for pure whimsy: Club hoppers in Barcelona, Spain, now use the microchip to enter a VIP area and, through links to a different database, speed payment much like a smartcard.
WASHINGTON — Medical milestone or privacy invasion? A tiny computer chip approved Wednesday for implantation in a patient’s arm can speed vital information about a patient’s 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.
Think UPC code. The identifier, emblazoned on a food item, brings up its name and price on the cashier’s screen.
Chip's dual uses raise alarm
The VeriChip itself contains no medical records, just codes that can be scanned, and revealed, in a doctor’s office or hospital. With that code, the health providers can unlock that portion of a secure database that holds that person’s medical information, including allergies and prior treatment. The electronic database, not the chip, would be updated with each medical visit.
The microchips have already been implanted in 1 million pets. But the chip’s possible dual use for tracking people’s movements — as well as speeding delivery of their medical information to emergency rooms — has raised alarm.
“If privacy protections aren’t built in at the outset, there could be harmful consequences for patients,” said Emily Stewart, a policy analyst at the Health Privacy Project.
To protect patient privacy, the devices should reveal only vital medical information, like blood type and allergic reactions, needed for health care workers to do their jobs, Stewart said.
An information technology guru at Detroit Medical Center, however, sees the benefits of the devices and will lobby for his center’s inclusion in a VeriChip pilot program.
“One of the big problems in health care has been the medical records situation. So much of it is still on paper,” said David Ellis, the center’s chief futurist and co-founder of the Michigan Electronic Medical Records Initiative.
'Part of the future of medicine'
As “medically mobile” patients visit specialists for care, their records fragment on computer systems that don’t talk to each other.
“It’s part of the future of medicine to have these kinds of technologies that make life simpler for the patient,” Ellis said. Pushing for the strongest encryption algorithms to ensure hackers can’t nab medical data as information transfers from chip to reader to secure database, will help address privacy concerns, he said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday announced $139 million in grants to help make real President Bush’s push for electronic health records for most Americans within a decade.
William A. Pierce, an HHS spokesman, could not say whether VeriChip and its accompanying secure database of medical records fit within that initiative.
“Exactly what those technologies are is still to be sorted out,” Pierce said. “It all has to respect and comport with the privacy rules.”
Applied Digital gave away scanners to a few hundred animal shelters and veterinary clinics when it first entered the pet market 15 years ago. Now, 50,000 such scanners have been sold.
To kickstart the chip’s use among humans, Applied Digital will provide $650 scanners for free at 200 of the nation’s trauma centers.
Implantation costs $150 to $200
In pets, installing the chip runs about $50. For humans, the chip implantation cost would be $150 to $200, said Angela Fulcher, an Applied Digital spokeswoman.
Fulcher could not say whether the cost of data storage and encrypted transmission of medical information would be passed to providers.
Because the VeriChip is invisible, it’s also unclear how health care workers would know which unconscious patients to scan. Company officials say if the chip use becomes routine, scanning triceps for hidden chips would become second nature at hospitals.
Ultimately, the company hopes patients who suffer from such ailments as diabetes and Alzheimer’s or who undergo complex treatments, like chemotherapy, would have chips implanted. If the procedure proves as popular for use in humans as in pets, that could mean up to 1 million chips implanted in people. So far, just 1,000 people across the globe have had the devices implanted, very few of them in the United States.
The company’s chief executive officer, Scott R. Silverman, is one of a half dozen executives who had chips implanted. Silverman said chips implanted for medical uses could also be used for security purposes, like tracking employee movement through nuclear power plants.
Such security uses are rare in the United States.
Meanwhile, the chip has been used for pure whimsy: Club hoppers in Barcelona, Spain, now use the microchip to enter a VIP area and, through links to a different database, speed payment much like a smartcard.
Cliffs: The Food and Drug Administration approved an implantable computer chip that can pass a patient’s medical details to doctors, speeding care. Conspiracy theorists and Big Brother Watch groups will flip out all over the world!
#3
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I think its a good idea for those people that are in the hospital regularily and can have these situations where this is necessary, but for the average person like me who is essentially never in the hospital, I would never bother.
#4
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The medic alert bracelets and necklaces already do the same thing. This is a solution in search of a problem. Note their lack of optimism: 1M people is 0.3% of the population, statistically nobody.
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Medical alert bracelets do more than just inform the doctors. Medical Alert Bracelets let every day people know what a person may or may not have, or if they are like my Mother and have seizures often.
They are very useful to use, Especially if they are in jepordy of there life and cant talk, then you can look at the bracelet and have a few clues of what to do!
They are very useful to use, Especially if they are in jepordy of there life and cant talk, then you can look at the bracelet and have a few clues of what to do!
#7
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The problem with RFID is that it is fully reproducable. You can make a RFID reader/transmitter for $40. If you're using RFID for your money, all it takes is for someone to swipe your RFID information from your wallet.. By swipe, I mean, pass a reader across your back pocket... Then use it to make a purchase.
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RFID has no legitimate security. I refuse to use NFC phones and encourage anyone else NOT to use any RFID that holds or transmits any financial or personally identifiable information.
It's just scary.
RFID is awesome, but until it can be secure I'm not going near it with any of my devices or financial information. Sure, I have 3 RFID cards in my wallet, but they're strictly for door access.
It's just scary.
RFID is awesome, but until it can be secure I'm not going near it with any of my devices or financial information. Sure, I have 3 RFID cards in my wallet, but they're strictly for door access.
#9
Super Moderator
This is one of the things where Clark Howard gets a HUGE
He keeps saying on his show how our credit card system is all outdated & whatnot and praises Europeans' wisdom for going to their fancy wireless cards. YGTBKM. Every time I get a renewed credit card, I specifically demand withOUT the wireless/smart whatever for security purposes. Instead of a tin-foil hat for our credit cards, how about we get a card system with some actual security?
He keeps saying on his show how our credit card system is all outdated & whatnot and praises Europeans' wisdom for going to their fancy wireless cards. YGTBKM. Every time I get a renewed credit card, I specifically demand withOUT the wireless/smart whatever for security purposes. Instead of a tin-foil hat for our credit cards, how about we get a card system with some actual security?