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FDA approves computer chip for humans
Devices could help doctors with stored medical information
The VeriChip, the size of a grain of rice, is inserted under the skin with 
a needle in a procedure that takes less than 20 minutes to complete.
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:38 p.m. ET Oct. 13, 2004

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.

   Complete coverage

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© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be 
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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