Tommy Thompson gets chip implant

Newsmax ^ | July 24, 2005

[FeeinTennessee]

Tommy Thompson Gets Chip Implant

Implanted microchips are getting a plug from a heavy hitter - former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Thompson plans to promote a product made by his new company � a medical info chip � by having one implanted in his arm.

"It doesn't cause any pain," Thompson told Paul Bedard, who writes the Washington Whispers column in U.S. News & World Report.

The chip is made by Florida-based VeriChip, which recently added Thompson to its board of directors.

The rice-size chip contains a 16-digit identification code that can be scanned at hospitals and then linked to a database containing the chip wearer's medical data.

So far about 2,000 medical chips have been implanted worldwide, and two hospitals in the U.S. are already equipped to scan them. "People are dying all the time," Thompson told Washington Whispers, "because they can't access their medical information overseas."

The chip was approved by the FDA last year. By that time more than 1,000 chips had been implanted in patients in Mexico. And nearly 200 people working in Mexico's attorney general's office were implanted with I.D. chips to access secure areas containing sensitive documents.

Others have put implanted chips to a more frivolous use: Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain, has offered to inject chips made by VeriChip in the arms of big spenders and celebrities for quick admission to its snooty VIP lounge.

The chips are "implanted with a syringe by a club staffer who is a nurse licensed to give injections," Fortune magazine reported.

Some have suggested using an implanted chip to assist the military in locating a downed pilot, or to help find a lost or kidnapped child.

But not everyone is thrilled with the notion of an implanted chip that could contain a wide array of information about an individual.

Scott McDonald of the Web site Scan This News warned: "All movement, transactions, and interactions can be recorded and monitored once everyone has their own unique identifier. Every detail of a person's life will be finally accessible to authorities through the widespread use of implanted chips."

And writing for NewsMax, Geoff Metcalf said that with widespread use of an implanted chip, "privacy – the very concept of privacy – becomes an anachronism." (See: Sci Fi Reality Creep.)

[southernnorthcarolina]

I already have a chip on my shoulder. Don't need another one.

[Eva]

I had a neighbor that chips implanted in his dogs.

[Fierce Allegiance]

One chip will not be enough, just like Lays.

Do you mean the potato chips?

[pabianice]

The good news is that if Thompson gets run over while he's chasing cars, any veterinarian or animal shelter will be able to identify him!

[Fierce Allegiance]

My dog has a chip. My kids will NEVER have one. My dog is my per, my property. My kids and I will never be the property of ANYBODY, especially the GOVERNMENT.

[keats5]

I don't like this chip idea. You never know what will happen if the wrong people get in power. Look at what's happened in the past in Germany, China, USSR, Cambodia, Sudan, etc.

I may want to reserve the chance to go underground someday.

[Old Professer]

That, too.

[Fierce Allegiance]

This ain't your granddaddy's America.

[NRA2BFree]

Is it just me or does this scream out "mark of the beast'?

That's exactly what I thought when I read this. Perhaps there's a series of numbers that make up 666, like the bar code.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Look at what's happened in the past in Germany, China, USSR, Cambodia, Sudan, etc.

[numberonepal]

I may want to reserve the chance to go underground someday.

Yeah, being chipped would make "dropping off the grid" an impossibility. Gattica is coming true.

[blackie]

Buffalo Chips are more appropriate. :)

[blackie]

Do you think this could be the M-o-t-B?

[stevio]

Accept the mark of the beast.

[keats5]

If this ever took off, wouldn't the government need to standardize the chip's location? Otherwise, how could the cop's find the chip, without doing an outrageously expensive total body scan or X-ray.

I think of how long ago Revelation was written, and how unlikely that a human writer could have known that someday people will be required to have a chip in one of two standardized places in order to buy and sell. It all makes perfect sense, almost 2000 years later.

[Kevin OMalley]

Revelations Chapter 13 bump.

[Mrs. Shawnlaw]

Chipping a person can be remedied. Get a rumen magnet, or any powerful magnet, run it over the chip site, voila, no data! Easy to get at a livestock supply store or internet site.

[keats5]

Revelation 13:

16He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
18This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.

[KarlInOhio]

Chipping a person can be remedied. Get a rumen magnet, or any powerful magnet, run it over the chip site, voila, no data!

I doubt that would work. It's not a cassette tape, it's a computer chip. These chips receive an AC signal, rectify it to provide power, turn on and then transmit a number. Everything is stored in silicon - not iron oxide.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

"People are dying all the time," Thompson told Washington Whispers, "because they can't access their medical information overseas."

I love the way they're selling this. It's just so HANDY! No pain at all. Besides, you wouldn't want to DIE when you're overseas because of some unfortunate delay in accessing your medical history, do you? And, if you're of the layer of society that goes to hoity-toity clubs, get a chip and avoid hassels at the door. All they'll have to do is come up with a chip that does away with underarm odor and makes you irresistable to the opposite sex (or the same sex, if that's your bag) and they'll have the whole world hooked.