Microchips for human bodies

Five days after the hijacked jets flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Dr Richard Seelig implanted two microchips into his body. In a nation where implants usually involve silicone, this might not make immediate sense. But Dr Seelig had good reason. "When I heard about the firemen and rescue workers who had written their social-security numbers on their bodies in case they were killed in the rubble, I felt there was a more reliable way to help them get identified," says the 55-year-old New Jersey physician.

Patriotism aside, Dr Seelig was driven by science. And money. He is a consultant to Applied Digital Solutions, a technology company in Florida which is causing a stir: it aims to mass-produce microchips by the summer and offer them to governments and private companies who wish to insert them into humans. If the chip is approved by America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the company hopes to sell the chip, along with a hand-held scanner and an injection kit, in the US within a year.

The VeriChip, as it is named, acts like a personal bar code. Information - 128 characters, or about 40 words - can be stored in it, and retrieved by a special scanning device. The company, whose best seller is Home Again, an identity microchip for pets, plans to market the VeriChip as an ID device and a method for storing medical data.

About the size of a grain of rice, the 11mm by 2.1mm Veri-Chip will be injected into muscle tissue using an intravenous needle. "It's just like giving blood," says Keith Bolton, ADS's chief technology officer. "The chip is coated with silicon so the body doesn't reject it." Seelig, who used a local anaesthetic to put the chips into his left forearm and right hip, adds: "It's a relatively simple procedure. I'm not aware of anything under my skin."

The company is, of course, eager to play up the product's safety aspects - and to play down any questions of users' privacy being invaded. Bolton says the chip could be used to identify workers in high-security areas, or allow paramedics to access life-saving information on devices such as pacemakers, artificial defibrillators and medication pumps. "If you were in shock or couldn't speak, or couldn't transmit information to the ambulance attendant, the hospital could take a proprietary hand-held scanner and scan over your body, and release information from the chip about your medical device," says Bolton.

Due to make its debut in Latin American, where FDA approval isn't necessary, by the middle of the year, the VeriChip will be "extremely inexpensive". Bolton dreams of a multi-billion-dollar industry. "The response has been overwhelming," he says. "The horizon looks promising."

Verichip may signal the advent of a brave new world, hitherto confined to science fiction, where microchips implanted in people will perform everyday tasks, such as withdrawing cash from bank machines. In fact, two years ago, British cyberneticist Kevin Warwick implanted a microchip which could open doors and switch on lights. But it now looks as if such innovations may be viable on a commercial basis.

"The concept of embedding a chip under the skin is non-controversial," claims Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster with California's Institute for the Future. But Saffo is sceptical of the VeriChip's usefulness. "If you stick a chip in your body, will anyone be able to read it? That's the real problem. You have to set a universal standard, then convince people to adopt it and spend money on scanners. It's not an overnight thing." So who would get the chip implanted? "It's something teenagers might do to terrify their parents. Like tattoos and piercings."

When pressed about the problem of a common standard, Bolton says ADS is conducting pilot tests with medical companies. "We're working with wellknown manufacturers of embedded medical devices to distribute the chip and reader with their product. We're also working with ambulance companies to make a wireless reader standard."

ADS also makes Digital Angel, a bracelet that uses global positioning satellite technology - already used by motorists - to locate Alzheimer's sufferers who wander off. "It's conceivable that in the not-too distant future we would have a product that integrates the two," says Bolton. "We're working on chips with global positioning technology. It could be the next step."