Posted on 07/25/2005 8:19:26 AM PDT by FeeinTennessee
Tommy Thompson Gets Chip Implant
Implanted microchips are getting a plug from a heavy hitter - former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
Thompson plans to promote a product made by his new company � a medical info chip � by having one implanted in his arm.
"It doesn't cause any pain," Thompson told Paul Bedard, who writes the Washington Whispers column in U.S. News & World Report.
The chip is made by Florida-based VeriChip, which recently added Thompson to its board of directors.
The rice-size chip contains a 16-digit identification code that can be scanned at hospitals and then linked to a database containing the chip wearer's medical data.
So far about 2,000 medical chips have been implanted worldwide, and two hospitals in the U.S. are already equipped to scan them. "People are dying all the time," Thompson told Washington Whispers, "because they can't access their medical information overseas."
The chip was approved by the FDA last year. By that time more than 1,000 chips had been implanted in patients in Mexico. And nearly 200 people working in Mexico's attorney general's office were implanted with I.D. chips to access secure areas containing sensitive documents.
Others have put implanted chips to a more frivolous use: Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain, has offered to inject chips made by VeriChip in the arms of big spenders and celebrities for quick admission to its snooty VIP lounge.
The chips are "implanted with a syringe by a club staffer who is a nurse licensed to give injections," Fortune magazine reported.
Some have suggested using an implanted chip to assist the military in locating a downed pilot, or to help find a lost or kidnapped child.
But not everyone is thrilled with the notion of an implanted chip that could contain a wide array of information about an individual.
Scott McDonald of the Web site Scan This News warned: "All movement, transactions, and interactions can be recorded and monitored once everyone has their own unique identifier. Every detail of a person's life will be finally accessible to authorities through the widespread use of implanted chips."
And writing for NewsMax, Geoff Metcalf said that with widespread use of an implanted chip, "privacy the very concept of privacy becomes an anachronism." (See: Sci Fi Reality Creep.)
Let us scan your documents or else comrade citizen.
I'll pass.
Is it just me or does this scream out "mark of the beast'?
Now we can track him like a salmon.
You won't have much choice before long.
You have to catch me first, copper! ;-)
Screw the chips......I want to implant a Big Mac!!
OK, you may escape, but how about your baby, and your baby's babies. The Hillary Clinton Memorial Hospital System will inject the microchip at birth. More of the Slide.
> "It doesn't cause any pain," Thompson told Paul Bedard ...
Until the "Host Self-Destruct" is remotely triggered
under some future Democrat administration.
They probably didn't tell him about the HSD feature.
> ... chip contains a 16-digit identification code ...
I wonder how many 6's appear in his, or if they
deliberately avoided that digit.
yep
Ahahaha - reminds me of the "thralls" in that episode of Star Trek, and Hillary has her hand of the button for the choke collar. I'm sure there's a bounty of many quatloos on my head.
verisign and those guys that make ru486 -- my two least favorite companies.
No, it's not just you....
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY right about that one!
Yeah I hope they don't start marketing those things heavily....I do NOT want some implant under my skin where I can be tracked. People should use their heads. Say GOODBYE to your freedoms if you get one of those.
I don't think I could bring a person into this world the way it's going now. Sad shape we are in.
Exactly, I will never be chipped.
Check your car for a VIN; there are as many as 20 on a new car. They began with just one, but for various reasons more and more were added, theft prevention, assembly, and inventory tracking.
One chip will not be enough, just like Lays.
Well, at least if he gets lost and ends up at an animal control they can scan him and get him back to his family, rather than adopting him out or putting him to sleep!
susie
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.