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Keep Your Chip Out of My Arm
By Jim Hightower
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 Corporation is the chief pusher, asserting that implanting one of its radio frequency ID chips into your upper arm can be a medical boon to you. 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.
Where were our so-called 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 a million dollars 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.
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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 Corporation is the chief pusher, asserting that implanting one of its radio frequency ID chips into your upper arm can be a medical boon to you. 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.
Where were our so-called 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 a million dollars 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.
Comments on "Keep Your Chip Out of My Arm"
Comments are limited to 200 words or less.Don wrote on Dec 25, 2007 5:03 AM:
" Steve, if you want to get the chip fine, but nobody else really does. Human beings aren't animals, you seem to be missing that point. VeriChip's recent merger isn't going to help them either. They can sit in their boardroom and fantasize about chipping humans until their stock equates to the value of dirt. Adding little useless features like glucose monitoring is nothing but a pathetic ploy to get humans to submit to being tagged like beasts. Investors should really jump ship because these guys look desperate and their product is hideous. "
Steve wrote on Dec 19, 2007 10:46 AM:
" I read not long ago how one of these Verichips helped save the life of a Police Officer in New Jersey. Sure makes sense to me for those wanting these chips (proven so with over 10 millions animals chipped without incident) to be able to have them! "