U.S. News

Human Implants: Are We Ready?

By Heather Sells
CBN News

CBNNews.com – Sergeant Bill Koretsky's implanted medical microchip may have saved his life. His story begins in the middle of a high-speed police chase in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Koretsky said, “The brakes on the police car overheated. The car wouldn't stop and I hit a telephone pole dead center at 40 miles per hour. The air bag did not deploy and I did not have my seatbelt on. I hit the steering wheel.”

Paramedics rushed Koretsky to Hackensack University Medical Center. Thanks to his implanted chip, doctors immediately discovered Koretsky's diabetes.

“I regained full consciousness within an hour,” Koretsky said. “But if I had not, I could have gone into a coma.”

If the VeriChip Corporation has its way, Koretsky's story will become the norm. It's targeting hospitals in Washington, D.C. and other metro areas, providing free scanners for the chip and hoping that soon, many Americans will decide to be implanted.

The simple procedure inserts a tiny chip under the arm, with no visible scar.

Dr. Bob Rothstein of Bethesda, Maryland’s Suburban Hospital said, “It's the patient who chooses to have the chip implanted, who chooses to have the information they want on the Internet, and who chooses who they want to access that information.”

Rothstein prefers face-to-face contact with patients, especially when learning their medical history. But Rothstein thinks the VeriChip makes sense. It can provide crucial information in an emergency for patients who are flustered--or simply unable to think or speak.

“Pull it out, initialize it and it's ready to search,” said Rothstein.

Rothstein showed us how simple it is to use the chip. He pretended to scan my arm, which, if I was chipped, would reveal a 16-digit code. He then would enter his password and my code in VeriChip's website to locate my medical records.

Suburban hospital is ready to scan. But the question is: are its patients? So far, only one person with a chip has come in.

You might not realize it, but the science behind the VeriChip is already big business. VeriChip uses radio frequency identification, or RFID technology. Last year, vendors shipped 500 million RFID chips to the U.S. military and companies like Wal -Mart for use in inventory tracking.

Your pet may be one of the more than 6 million animals chipped since 1991. Highway toll systems use it to automatically charge you. And the latest U.S. passports sport RFID chips.

RFID tracking has become a part of our everyday world. And that may pave the way for more implants, even mandatory ones.

Dr. Albrecht said, “I think the real concern that most people have is that at some point the government would line up and say 'get your chip.”

In fact, in just the last few weeks, the VeriChip Corporation has confirmed talks with the Pentagon about chipping soldiers. VeriChip says the military is interested in obtaining easy access to its members’ medical records.

Perhaps in the nick of time, 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.

Dr. Katherine Albrecht is a consumer advocate who follows the RFID world closely. Her book Spychips chronicles the industry's growth.

Albrecht says many people have deep philosophical objections to the idea of an implanted chip.

“Those range from Christians who have prophetic reasons, to those from a humanistic perspective who just think it's wrong to have a microchip interacting with a human body.”

Even the most prominent VeriChip supporter, former Health And Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, seems hesitant. Thompson, a VeriChip board member, is not chipped, despite promising to do so last year.

And Dr. Rothstein admitted that he's still debating whether to get the chip himself.

Albrecht says the chip is not a good idea for patients wanting help in an emergency.

That's because VeriChip itself admits that "the patient information database may not function properly" if a third-party system fails or a natural disaster strikes.

And if you're considering the implant for security reasons or to make payments, consider this: hackers showed just this summer that the chip is cloneable.

Albrecht said, “Someone can come within a foot or so of that implant in a restaurant, in an elevator, when you're looking the other way, wave a device near you, capture that 16-digit number, and within minutes begin emitting that same number themselves.”

For Sergeant Koretsky, specific medical concerns made the decision to implant easy.

“I've told all my friends to do it,” Koretsky said. “There's no reason not to have it.”

It's telling that none of his friends have chosen the implant so far -- perhaps showing that, for most people, the time of human implants has not yet come.

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