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Nov 27, 2005 11:58 pm US/Eastern Future Is Now With Microchip Implants Save It Email It Print It The chip is smaller than a thumbnail, but allows doctors access to all of his medical records with only the swipe of a scan. "There's days I forget I even have it. It's part of me, like taking insulin, part of me," said Molly Phillips, who is a diabetic. She had the chip implanted in her arm after a medical scare last December landed her in the hospital. At the time, doctors didn't know what medication she was on. "If I'm in that circumstance again, they would scan my arm, pull up my information and have it right there within seconds," said Molly. The microchip implant was originally used for tracking lost pets, but the Food and Drug Administration approved implants in humans last year. Since then, 60 people in the Northeast have gotten the chip implant. Each chip contains a unique 16-digit number that, when scanned, connects doctors to an Internet database that retrieves medical records instantly. "Patients in our emergency trauma come in very sick, and it's the sickest patients that you need accurate information, medical information, up front in a very timely fashion," said Dr. Joseph Feldman, with the emergency department at Hackensack Medical Center. The medical center was the first in our area to participate. Feldman assures patients their confidential records can only be viewed by proper medical personnel. "When you think of written medical records, how secure really are they? So you can't look at medical records in isolation of electronic records," Feldman said. However, these microchips are at the center of a serious debate about fundamental privacy rights. Privacy advocates say they're concerned these chips could monitor or track people, medical records could be abused, and people would be unable to remove the chip by themselves if they wanted to. Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center is concerned because there currently are no rules that regulate or limit how this chip can be used. "To suggest that this isn't personal information is misleading," he said. "It is very personal information. It is the information that would open the door to anyone who had it to obtain medical information." But Phillips says that in her case, she doesn't see a down side. "There's really nothing but what kind of medication I'm on," she said. "A doctor would want to know what medications I'm on, but no one else would care." For more information on the chip implant, you can log onto: http://www.verichipcorp.com and http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/verichip.html (© MMV, CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.) |
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