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Have you been chipped? In another cabal of corporate and governmental
officials, there’s been a steady push during the past few years to
authorize and market microchip devices to be implanted into humans. An
outfit named VeriChip Corp. is the chief pusher, asserting that implanting
one of its radiofrequency ID chips into your upper arm can be a medical
boon. These electronic capsules transmit a unique code, says VeriChip, and
if something happens to you hospital staff can run a scanner over your
chip, get your code, and activate a database containing your medical
history. VeriChip envisions a market of at least 45 million
Americans sporting their very own RFID codes. But — oops — one
bit of info the corporation never mentioned is that studies have found that
these implants have induced malignant tumors in lab mice and rats.
“There’s no way in the world that I would have one of those
chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members,” one
eminent cancer expert says. Where were our regulatory watchdogs? Too busy cheering
on the chippers to ask tough questions about side effects. Tommy Thompson,
the Bush appointee who oversaw the agency that approved VeriChip for use in
humans, has been a vigorous promoter of such electronic medical
technologies. Five months after Thompson resigned his cabinet position in
2005, guess where he went? Right onto the board of directors of both
VeriChip and its parent corporation, where he was paid $40,000 a year and
given about $1 million worth of stock. Interestingly, while Thompson once told an interviewer
that he would “absolutely” be willing to have a VeriChip
implanted in his own arm, he never did. Maybe he felt that an injection of
VeriChip cash would be better for his health.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2007.
