But fears of a Big Brother future where governments monitor which citizens show up at political rallies, bosses keep track of how many hours an employee sits at their desk, and jealous spouses demand an accounting of every delayed errand hounded VeriChip Corp. since they first announced plans to begin implanting RFID chips in humans in 2001.

A tremendous backlash from privacy advocates, cautious government regulators, and ordinary people who found the idea of microchips under their skin just plain creepy held up widespread adoption of the chip and led to rapid turnovers of corporate management at VeriChip’s Florida offices.

“This just simply goes way too far outside the realm of what we believe in as a society,” said Randall Marshall, of the American Civil Liberties Union back when the VeriChip human trials were first announced.

But society has changed since 9/11, citizens of most countries have now bargained away some privacy for more security. And VeriChip Corp has learned from past mistakes - like proposing a GPS tracking system to go with their chip, an idea that was greeted with horror.

The American Food and Drug Association has given VeriChip a complete green light and every day more people are being injected with the tiny 12mm microchip now sporting the current, more benign sounding title “The VeriMed Patient Identification System.”

It seems like VeriChip Corporation has finally gotten it right and the net result is that, more and more, human beings may end up on the Net - tagged by radio waves that will allow authorized people to access their records with the same way we now track our packages from the FedEx website.

And even the most diehard privacy pundits can’t argue with its success. Even with a relatively small number of early adopters, the VeriMed microchip has already managed to help save at least two lives in its first six months of use.

After a terrible car accident during a high speed chase, New Jersey police officer Sgt. William Koretsky was brought into Hackensack University Medical Center with head, neck and back injuries.

Chasing down a criminal, Koretsky hit a steel pole dead on going 40 miles per hour without wearing a seat belt and slammed into the steering wheel after the airbags in his police car failed.

But the danger didn’t end with the crash. Koretsky has diabetes.

Thankfully, Hackensack University Medical Center is one of the 110 hospitals that have committed to using the VeriChip technology and after doctors scanned the unconscious cop, they discovered the VeriMed microchip and were able to see that he was diabetic.

Koretsky credits the microchip with saving his life and VeriChip Corporation points to his experience as a perfect case study.

Here is how it worked. Months earlier Koretsky visited a local doctor after agreeing to take part in the VeriChip trial. The chip is so small that it is injected just like a shot of medicine.

“It takes just a few seconds and there are no sutures required, just a Band-Aid,” explained Allison Tomek, VP of Corporate Communications at Applied Digital Solutions, the parent company of VeriChip Corporation.

The tiny pill-shaped gadget holds an antenna and micro-chip encased in silicone to prevent rejection by the body and is slicked with a substance called Bio-Bond that forms a cocoon of scar tissue in the body that keeps the chip from moving around.

The VeriMed microchip uses no batteries but lies asleep until scanned by the necessary reader. The chip is then charged by the energy of the scan, wakes up and begins transmitting a sixteen digit number by radio waves.

When the doctors about to treat Sgt. Koretsky after his car crash got the number by holding the scanner six inches above his arm, they went online to the database setup by VeriChip Corporation, logged in with their password, and entered Koretsky’s 16 digit ID.

Instantly Bill Koretsky’s complete medical records, insurance information, and medications list were available and could be printed out for hospital staff. Doctors saw Koretsky was diabetic and began giving him the necessary medicine to prevent him from slipping into a coma.

VeriChip Corporation imagines a world where every doctor’s visit is that easy.

Anyone who has seen a loved one seriously injured knows how frustrating hospital Emergency Rooms can be. It goes against every instinct to sit their rattling off lists of allergy medicines and verifying insurance when someone your care about is in pain.

With the VeriMed microchip checking into the hospital would be as easy as checking out at the grocery store. And that is what is fueling its ever more rapid adoption by the elderly who find themselves well out ahead of their grandkids in this particular technological frontier.

“I think someone has to take the first steps and it has got to be done,” said Suzan Shipper, 57, who had her 84 year-old husband suffering from Alzheimer’s disease chipped and decided to be implanted herself, too.

The Shippers are taking part in a two year trial tracking users’ and doctors’ experiences with the RFID chip. The trial is being sponsored by Alzheimer’s Community Care, a local South Florida non-profit that provides services for dementia patients and their families.

“The families think it is great,” says Mary Barns, CEO of Alzheimer’s Community Care. “They feel for the first time there is a better protection out there for their safety.”

That’s definitely what motivated Suzan Shipper who is counting on the chip to help return her husband to her Palm Beach, Florida home if they get separated and he is unable to remember where they live or even his name.

“How often in the paper do you see that someone wanders away?” asks Mrs. Shipper. “It happens all the time. My friend got a call that her mother was out at 4am knocking on neighbors’ doors trying to get in.”

It gives Suzan Shipper a sense of peace knowing that she’ll never again have to fearfully call hospitals and police stations the way she once did when her husband once got confused and took of on his electric scooter with her car keys, leaving her stranded and he lost for half a day.

“If they scan his arm they can pull his address and phone number up on the computer,” says Shipper with visible relief. “And they can also print out his medications with no mistakes in communication.”

When told about how the VeriMed microchip works the healthy 57 year-old decided it was a good idea for her, too. “I got a chip because I could get hit by a truck and they could pull up my records and see I’m allergic to latex.”

Suzan says people who are worried about getting chipped have got it wrong. “There is absolutely no pain at all, you don’t feel it going in,” she says. “The dentist is much worse.”

And privacy concerns? “The database only contains what I want,” answers Shipper. “I just keep our medical records, insurance, stuff like that on it. And I can change that whenever I want from any computer.”

Mary Barns says all one hundred of her Alzheimer Community Cares patients are reporting similar good feelings about the microchip in their bodies or the body of their loved ones.

Barns adds that the technology has already helped in at least one emergency situation. “In St. Lucy county one of our caregivers brought their spouse to the hospital after they stopped breathing. But the caregiver was in such a heightened emotional state they couldn’t talk. The VeriMed chip allowed the hospital to get all the necessary medical records and rescue the patient.”

With the implant procedure free and the only requirement being a mandatory two years subscription to VeriChip’s medical database at a cost of $9.95 a month, many taking part in the study feel it is some of the best money they are spending on healthcare.

But all these health benefits may come with a few health risks, too. A series of animal studies dating to the mid-1990’s, indicates a greater than normal risk of cancer in animals implanted with an RFID chip.

“There’s no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members,” said Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York in comments to the Associated Press.

Some in the medical community are asking why the FDA would approve a technology for human use if it seems it could lead to illness.

The anti-VeriChip internet website WeThePeopleWillNotBeChipped.com is even running a campaign spoofing the famous “Got Milk?” ads, asking “Want Cancer? Get VeriChip.”

And the blogosphere erupted with recriminations when a possible conflict of interest was found concerning the VeriChip’s approval for human use.

At the time of the FDA’s approval, Tommy Thompson led the Department of Health and Human Services which exercises oversight of the FDA. Two weeks after the implantable microchip’s approval on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his post. Within five months in the civilian sector, Thompson became a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options.

Thompson says he had no personal relationship with the company as the VeriChip was being evaluated, nor did he play any role in FDA’s approval process.

As for Applied Digital, they vigorously denounce concerns over their product, pointing to several other medical studies that conclude RFID chips are safe in animals, the fact that the FDA is standing by its approval, and an impressive 15 year record of implanting their chips into millions of animals with no red flags by veterinarians that there is a health risk to pets.

Despite the concerns of a few, it may be too late to hold back the tide of humans being implanted with Radio Frequency ID devices.

RFID is literally everywhere: last year alone, 500 million RFID chips were shipped to the U.S. military and companies like Wal-Mart for use in inventory tracking. Tolls on highways and bridges are increasingly charged automatically through RFID, the latest US Passports contain one of the chips, and even your pet may be one of the six million who have been chipped since 1991 in Applied Digital’s “Home Again” Program, their original business.

VeriChip Corp. even helped during Hurricane Katrina, making the job of coroners infinitely easier by implanting flood victims corpses’ with their RFID chip for free, so that bodies could be easily tracked and returned to loved ones once they stepped forward.

In a world where RFID has proven so useful, it may seem foolish not to extend the benefits of the radio web to people.

But there is one thing all sides of the implant controversy can agree on – being chipped needs to remain voluntary.

Wisconsin passed legislation this summer banning mandatory chipping. And Ohio is following suit, after a Cincinnati company told workers they’d have to be implanted to access a data center.

VeriChip Corp. says they quite agree. “The overall standards of our company,” says Allison Tomek, “is that VeriMed is a voluntary procedure.”

- The End -
By Lance Laytner
Copyright 2008
Meritum Media