666 in Hebrew is WWW
Posted on 09/16/2005 4:07:37 PM PDT by blogblogginaway
Disaster relief crews are adopting radio frequency tags to help them identify victims in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The U.S. Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) and health officials in Mississippi's Harrison County are currently implanting human cadavers with RFID chips from VeriChip in an effort to speed up the process of identifying victims and providing information to families. The County Medical Examiner's office in Lafayette County, Miss., also said it will stock RFID chips and scanners for future disaster relief. Louisiana will begin to use the system soon, which will help officials face the estimated 500 unidentified bodies currently in the state.
The company has marketed the human RFID systems, with much controversy, over the past two years. Advocates say that implanting chips into humans will one day help doctors and emergency medical personnel rapidly access an individual's medical history or identify them. The idea for the technology came when an employee of Applied Digital, VeriChip's parent company, watched emergency crews on TV trying to identify victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
RFID bracelets have also been adopted in prisons and jails to reduce inmate violence.
Opponents, however, state that embedding RFID chips into people will erode civil liberties and privacy. Several Christian groups also object, asserting the chips violate their beliefs.
Adopting RFID for disaster recovery in this manner improves record keeping, according to VeriChip. When relief workers find an unidentified body, they insert a chip and enter information about the location, physical condition and characteristics of the body. Some also take digital photographs. The data is then cross-checked against a database being compiled which contains information from families about missing persons in the area. Cross-checking the data, ideally, will allow workers and families to identify victims more rapidly. The RFID tags will allow relief workers to identify and find the body again.
"While difficult to think about, such technologies will greatly assist in the disaster recovery efforts by speeding the process of cadaver processing, reducing error and facilitating the reunification of the deceased with their loved ones," the company stated.
oh geez, this is going to rev up the art bell / alex jones crowd.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six.
666 in Hebrew is WWW
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