Excerpt: "An American biomedical company has signed up with a British healthcare firm to sell digestible sensors, each smaller than a grain of sand, that can trigger the transmission of medical information from a patient's body to the mobile phone of a relative or carer."
Ingestible chips, like these made by Proteus Biomedical, enter the body and send data to smartphones, 01/17/12. (photo: Michael Sugrue/Proteus)
Edible Microchips That Are 'Good for Your Health'
17 January 12
Pharmacy to sell edible microchips that will alert doctors if patients are not taking right medicines.
n American biomedical company has signed up with a British healthcare firm to sell digestible sensors, each smaller than a grain of sand, that can trigger the transmission of medical information from a patient's body to the mobile phone of a relative or carer.
The aim is to develop a suite of "intelligent medicines" that can help patients and their carers keep track of which pills are taken at what time of day, in order to ensure that complex regimes of drugs are given the best possible chance of working effectively.
Ultimately, the plan is for every one of the many pills taken each day by some of the most chronically-ill patients, especially those with mental health problems, to be digitally time-stamped as they are digested within the body.
The healthcare company Lloyds- pharmacy said it intends to sell the edible microchips of Proteus Biomedical of California by the end of the year, as part of a trial to test whether NHS patients would be prepared to pay privately to ensure that they or their relatives take the right medicines at the right time.
"There is a huge problem with medicines not being taken correctly," said Steve Gray, healthcare services director of Lloydspharmacy.
"Anyone taking several medications knows how easy it can be to lose track of whether or not you've taken the correct tablets that day," he added.
"Add to that complex health issues and families caring for loved ones who many not live with them and you can appreciate the benefits of an information service that helps patients to get the most from their treatments and for families to help them to remain well."
Lloydspharmacy said the World Health Organisation has found that about half of all patients fail to take their medicines correctly, which can lead to people not getting the full benefits of treatment, or ending up with harmful side-effects.
Unused prescription medicines are estimated to cost the NHS nearly £400m a year.
The Proteus technology is based on the company's digestible sensors, which are no bigger than a grain of sand. They are composed of the ingredients commonly found in food and are activated when they come into contact with stomach fluids.
At the heart of the technology is a tiny silicon wafer separating tiny quantities of copper and magnesium, which effectively forms a microscopic battery that generates an electric current when immersed in the acidic environment of the stomach.
These electric currents, which can be given individual signatures to match the drug taken with the edible sensor, are detected passively by an intelligent patch stuck to the patient's skin, in much the same way that electrocardiogram (ECG) skin patches can record the electric currents within the heart.
The patch, which is designed to be worn for seven days, includes a flexible battery and chip that records the information and sends it by Bluetooth wireless technology to the mobile phone of a relative or professional carer.
"In the future the goal is a fully integrated system that creates an information product that helps patients and their families with the demands of complex pharmacy," said Andrew Thompson, the chief executive and founder of Proteus Biomedical.
"What we know is that we've created many pharmaceuticals with great potential but much of that potential is not realised because these drugs are not being used properly."
Neither company was prepared to comment on the cost of the digestible microchips, but industry sources suggested a starting cost of about £50 per week.
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To press taking drugs on anyone is a crime.
I love these quotes; they're hidden bullshit "sensors" in the "stomach" of this article.At the current rate of exchange, this "breakthrough" internalized surveillance will cost, not covered by insurance, more than $300 a month for "peace of mind".
1) The putative core objective is to save the NHS money. In a country perhaps more economically depressed than the U.S., not an inherently evil concept, but why can't they just come out and state this? Instead, it gets wrapped in all this altruistic rubbish about helping caregivers and doctors. 2) The chip-maker is an American firm. If this works for the Brit NHS, guess where it's coming next? If it's $300 a month to start, will the cost go up or down? Who pays? 3) The most insidious aspect: If they can track pills and dosages, what else will they be able to track before they're through "developing" this "grain of sand"? Isn't this just another form of RFID, turning tags into microscopic sensors floating inside the body, prepared to locate you anywhere, anytime, to anyone with a receiver? Able to transmit who-knows-what as yet undeveloped data about you to...whom? The military, perhaps, under the radioactively controversial 2011 NDAA, recently signed into law? Nah, let's trust everyone involved...it's all about "good health", isn't it?
Secondly, they're really like electric circuits - when activated by stomach acids they send a small electric current to a sensor on the skin. They cannot record or transmit information.
That is not to say that one day technology won't produce a tiny chip capable of ingestion and transmission of information. And this will certainly eventually be used for nefarious means. But for now, I wouldn't worry too much about these little sensors!
As far as I'm concerned, anything that can send electronic signals anywhere, also has the potential to receive electronic signals. I'd hate to get a stinging pain somewhere in my body because I forgot to take a pill. Anything that can transmit biological information from the body in the form of an electronic signal, no matter how small, is a total invasion of privacy, as far as I'm concerned.
Anyone that is so incapacitated that they cannot follow their doctor's directions for taking their meds needs a caregiver to visit with them to make sure they are also getting their other needs met such as meals and proper hygiene.
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