VeriChip managed to go public in February but the company, a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions, has never generated profits from its belief that human beings might want a radio microchip that identifies them embedded in their arm (or anywhere else).
Photo: William Ciccocioppo for The New York TimesSure, there have a been a few individuals willing to experiment. You’ve probably read about the nightclub patrons in Spain who thought it would be cooler to have themselves scanned than their credit cards and the Mexican police who were implanted to control access to key documents in drug trafficking investigations. Others have experimented with using such tags to link themselves to medical records.
Just last week, VeriChip, based in Delray Beach, Fla., announced it had begun a two-year experiment showing the value of its VeriMed system (implanted chips, scanners, related software) in tracking records for patients in a nearby community center for up to 200 Alzheimer’s patients.
But the prevailing view has continued to be that putting identification chips in people is too creepy, complicated and expensive to make much headway as a common practice, much less a profitable business. The odds that will change just got longer — temporarily at least — with the publication Sunday in numerous newspapers, on the web, and on television of an Associated Press article suggesting that the implanted Verichips might cause cancer.
It was flimsy science but brilliant advocacy work by CASPIAN, the anti-RFID group that convinced an AP reporter to pursue the story (CASPIAN is the legacy of the group’s original name — Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering — and the battle of its founder, Katherine Albrecht, against grocery loyalty cards).
The transition of Verichip from just another RFID “spychip” in CASPIAN’s eyes to “cancer chip”, began a year ago, according to Liz McIntyre, the group’s research director. That’s when the former owner of a French bulldog named Leon contacted her in the belief that Leon’s death was linked to the radio identification chip that had been implanted in him — a common practice in animals.
Ms. McIntyre story how Leon’s death drove his owner — identified only as Jeanne — to locate animal studies CASPIAN ultimately provided to AP’s Todd Lewan is told here.
Anyone reading it might assume that the link between Leon’s implant and deadly cancer was clearcut — in fact, the published paper by Italian researchers on the biopsy that linked Leon’s cancer to the chip said that the dog had recovered fully when they removed the tumor. But no matter, the tale inspired Ms.Albrecht to dig up other studies to go along with Jeanne’s and it was enough to get Mr. Lewan interested.
The article noted that many researchers viewed the studies linking RFID chips in lab rodents to cancer as a huge leap. The story of Leon and another dog — an even less documented case — were mentioned only parenthetically. But the article caught both the company and the Food and Drug Administration flat-footed, in part because the VeriChip had been approved in what is known as a a 510(K) process that left little documentation of its safety review in the public record. When asked to provide it, the FDA’s overworked bureaucrats had apparently done what they reflexively do in such situations — instead of digging out all the documents they reviewed and handing them over, they ended up saying, in essence, take our word for it, we looked at enough animal studies and other data to conclude there is no cause for concern on this point.
Verichip’s shares paid the price Monday, falling more than 11 percent. Ms. Albrecht, in an email to supporters, exultantly urged them to remember if they get depressed “how a few gutsy women and a crackerjack reporter poked Big Brother in the eye and brought down one of the most menacing corporations on the planet.”
Ms. McIntyre was privately more restrained in her assessment of what the studies prove. “There’s a hint there could be problems,” she said. But isn’t VeriChip’s biggest problem exactly what it was before the cancer grenade was tossed? There doesn’t seem to be much demand for it whether or not it poses a health risk.
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