Microchips Cause Cancer

Microchips are tiny radio-frequency computer chips (typically no larger than a grain of rice) that can be implanted into domestic animals, cars, and laptops. They are used for information storage – in dogs, for example, they contain the owner’s contact information and serve as a GPS tracking device in case the dog is lost.



In 2004, the FDA approved microchips for health-care use in human beings. They gave this approval to a company called VeriChip Corp.

In humans, these implantable chips act as high-tech electronic medical records. Imagine it: your entire medical history can be instantly accessed in a single computer scan because you have a data chip under your skin. Sounds convenient doesn’t it? In case of an emergency your medical provider would not be at a loss, even if you forget important details or can’t communicate at all..

…but do these microchips cause cancer?

Well, according to a report by The Associated Press, they just might.

A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

What? I thought these things were supposed to SAVE your life, not give you cancer! How did these devices get approved by the FDA if they cause tumors in mice? I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but I could offer one reason for their approval:

The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip's approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months he became a board member of VeriChip Corp. According to the AP article, he was compensated in cash and stock options.

Hmmm…

OK. Leaving conspiracy theories aside for the moment, it’s not like this is a public health menace or anything, right? I mean, do you know anyone with an implanted microchip? Well, you might be surprised, I sure was, to learn that….

To date, about 2,000 of the so-called radio frequency identification, or RFID, devices have been implanted in humans worldwide, according to VeriChip Corp. The company, which sees a target market of 45 million Americans for its medical monitoring chips…

Yes, you’re right, 2,000 chips implanted in humans amounts to just 1 in every 150,000 people in the US. But what if it were 45,000,000? Now THAT’S a lot of microchips. And don’t forget that these devices have been implanted in tens of thousands of pet dogs and cats in the US to aid in their recovery should they get lost.

So what lesson can we learn from all of this?

Well, maybe VeriChip paid off Tommy Thompson to ensure FDA approval of their product and then further rewarded him by offering him a lucrative position as a board member. Maybe not. Figuring that out is what investigational reporters are for. What I think we can learn from this experience is the importance of ongoing research even after a product is approved by the FDA. The studies required by the FDA in order to demonstrate safety are usually very small, enrolling fewer than 100 patients, so that rare side effects may not be seen in these trials.

For example, if microchips cause tumors at a rate of 0.01% (1 in 10,000), and if they were tested in 100 people prior to approval, no tumors would have been expected to be seen in those studies. However, if 1 in 10,000 recipients get a tumor, and if 45,000,000 chips are implanted, that’s 4,500 tumors, which is not an insignificant number.

Post-market evaluations are a valuable mechanism for identifying these problems, as demonstrated by the Vioxx case that was so prominent several years ago. And because some of these side effects are rare, detecting them after the drug or device has been approved by the FDA does not imply fault on the part of the manufacturer or on the part of the FDA. It just means that it is hard to detect rare side effects.

The other lesson to be learned is on the value of animal testing. Thus far, no study has determined that tumors have been detected in humans, but given the small number of humans with chips implanted, this is not a surprise. However, having detected these tumors in animals alerts us to the possibility that something similar could happen in people. This will increase our vigilance in looking for this side effect, and that will ultimately benefit us all.