Society Archives

BusinessWeek is running a series of articles that take a look at the various issues surrounding the controversy of implantable microchips. This week, Scott R. Silverman, CEO of VeriChip out of Delray Beach, FL, is defending the technology that led his company to receive the first FDA approval for implantable RFID:

During the FDA approval process we provided 34 studies to the FDA demonstrating the safety of implantable microchips. There have been numerous studies in mice, rats, woodchucks, rabbits, guinea pigs, pigs, and dogs that investigated the microchip and potential adverse effects of inserting it into subcutaneous tissue. None of these studies showed any tumors or other significant problems. It is clear the use of microchips in humans and pets is a safe and a dependable means of identification that has been used in millions of animals for over 15 years and in humans for the past several years. Except for a few vocal naysayers, this product is overwhelmingly embraced by medical professionals and high-risk patients.
There has also been some confusion regarding the VeriMed microchip’s capabilities. The VeriMed microchip is a passive device (it has no power source) that is activated only when read by our scanner. The microchip stores only an identification number and cannot track a person’s whereabouts because it does not have Global Positioning System capability. Some privacy advocates have voiced concerns regarding our microchip but often we find that once people are educated on what the device is: a passive identification tool to identify high-risk patients and their medical records; and what the device isn’t—a GPS tracking device —their concerns are mollified.

More at BusinessWeek…
VeriChip Corp.
Related: California Senate Passes Bill Outlawing RFID Skimming

I (Dr O) just finished reading a powerful new book, Stem Cell Century: Law and Policy for a Breakthrough Technology by Russell Korobkin and Stephen R. Munzer, professors at UCLA School of Law. People in the medical field often assume that science marches forward, while they tend to forget (and even sometimes disregard) the societal concerns and objections to new technologies and scientific ideas. Never before in the history of modern medicine has a new discipline generated so much controversy and opposition, as well as hope and promise, as the newly emerging field of stem cell biology. Consequently, the law and policy making will play as much role for the future of this field as the science itself, including its bench and clinical research.
Messrs. Korobkin and Munzer subdivided the book into 10 easy to read chapters. The biology principles are explained clearly at the beginning of the book. What follows then is a thoughtful analysis of the issues–legal, societal, ethical, etc.–and how to present them to the public and defend them in the courts. The authors discuss a wide range of issues in stem cell biology–stem cells, cloning, IVF, embryos creation, and more–and the surrounding legal arguments, anything from constitutional concerns, to patent law, to rights of patients to receive treatments, even if these therapies are controversial and not proven. The legal and policy issues, precedents, and a wide range of controversies are laid out in the book in a plain manner, so anyone outside of the legal profession would understand.

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William Stewart Halsted, Johns Hopkins Hospital’s first head surgeon, invented rubber surgical gloves, and now the very same institution has instituted a moratorium on them.

It was at Hopkins that immunologists Robert Hamilton, Ph.D., and Franklin Adkinson, M.D., conducted early key research related to the problems of natural rubber latex as an allergen. Furthermore, Brown points out, the nurses and other frontline hospital workers have been instrumental in implementing the latex-safe policy and educating the staff. Studies show that roughly 6 percent of the general population and up to 15 percent of health care works are allergic to latex, with the higher rate among medical personnel due to longer periods of contact with natural rubber. In addition to surgical gloves, latex is used in numerous medical devices such as tourniquets, blood pressure cuffs and stethoscope tubes. The anaphylactic reactions, similar to those caused by foods such as peanuts or by bee sting allergies, can include a drop in blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat, swelling in the hands and feet and constriction of the airways. In extreme cases, anaphylactic shock, which can occur minutes after the exposure, can lead to death.

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Today we learn that Oscar Pistorius, the star South African sprinter with prosthetic legs, was disqualified from competing in this year’s Olympics. The International Association of Athletics Federations tested his artificial legs in the laboratory and concluded that they’re 25% more efficient than the blood and flesh variety, and therefore would give Pistorius an unfair advantage.
More at Wired…

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A bit of old school investigative reporting by the Seattle Times has led the FDA, and even Congress, to look into companies selling two fake medical devices that apparently promise to cure everything from AIDS to colon cancer. Because the FDA allows the sale of these things as “stress-relief tools,” the companies are not banned outright from marketing their products without a scrupulous regulatory process. The current investigations by the FDA and U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, is looking into promises made by companies marketing the devices in question.
From The Seattle Times:

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Awake, a new Hollywood movie featuring a devilishly cunning anesthesiologist, is causing another example of hysteria before the public even has a chance to react to it. Trust your correspondent, an anesthesiologist, on this one: awareness under anesthesia is a multifactorial, complex phenomenon. The American Society of Anesthesiologists has an excellent website that explains anesthesia awareness, and it also keeps the patients registry. So check out these sites, and here’s some more about the movie and the clinical problem from the New York Times:

Called anesthesia awareness, it occurs when patients wake up during surgery because they are underanesthetized. In real life, these periods are generally brief. But the patient can indeed feel pain, ranging from minor to unendurable.

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Today’s Wal Street Journal has an article about a dispute between Cleveland Clinic and one of its former department chairs, Dr. Jay Yadav, who was fired for alleged conflict of interest involving “financial stakes in two companies whose experimental products were tested on clinic patients.” (We have reported about Dr. Yadav in an earlier post about CardioMems’ implantable device for the monitoring of blood pressure inside aortic aneurysms. He is a chief executive of Cardiomems, an Atlanta company.)
In a lawsuit, filed in an Ohio court against Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Yadav claims that financial conflicts of interest are pervasive among Cleveland Clinic physicians, citing hospital’s chief executive Dr. Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, an inventor of Cosgrove-Edwards ring, and Dr. Isador Lieberman, an orthopedic surgeon with ties to Kyphon Inc.

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If you don’t know what to give your boss this holiday season, with a new healthcare gift card from Highmark Inc. you can let the brutal honesty out and tell him it’s for his meds. The Wall Street Journal Online chronicles the new phenomenon:

Pittsburgh health insurer Highmark Inc. is selling a Healthcare Visa Gift Card from $25 to $5,000 to cover prescription co-payments, elective surgery, contact lenses and gym membership.

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