RFID Chips Linked to Fast-Growing Cancer

Via DailyTech -

Last week, Dailytech reported that California's State senate had blocked employers from requiring their employees to get "chipped"--implanted with an RFID chip that would allow for radio identification and tracking.

Now in addition to the privacy concerns, a new report by the Associate Press has brought to light serious doubts on RFID implants' medical safety.

The report details how numerous studies on RFID implants in animal test subjects, starting in the mid-1990s, revealed that the implants led to a significant increase in malignant tumor growth.

Keith Johnson, a retired toxological pathologist who led one of these studies, in 1996 at Dow Chemical Co., when interviewed in the report stated that he had no doubts about whether RFID was to blame for the increased incidence of cancer. He is quoted as clearly stating, "The transponders were the cause of the tumors."

The findings were reviewed by top cancer specialists, who found the results disturbing. They cautioned people that these tests were performed on animals, so that they were not necessarily applicable in humans, however, most felt additional research was a necessity. Some went as far to say that they would not allow family members to receive implants.

Currently about 2,000 people worldwide have received RFID chips implants, according to VeriChip, the leading manufacturer of FDA-approved RFID implants, including a couple who were ordered to do so by their employer.

Verichip commented that they were "not aware of any studies that have resulted in malignant tumors in laboratory rats, mice and certainly not dogs or cats."

The company also, sells RFID chips for animals.

A significant detail to these studies is that many of them were not intended to study the correlation between RFID chip implanting to cancer--rather, during research on a separate topic the increased cancer rates were high enough to catch the researchers' attention and allow them to draw a clear conclusion that the chip was causing the increased cancer rate.

The AP report goes on to discuss the suspect nature of the FDA's approval of VeriChip's human RFID implant. The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Sciences, which at the time of the approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson.

Just two weeks after the Jan. 10, 2005 approval of the device, Tommy Thompson resigned his post with the department and within five months assumed a position at VeriChip. He received stock options and cash compensation for his newly acquired position.

Thompson, until recently a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, recently denied in an interview having any familiarity with VeriChip before his resignation.

The FDA refused to comment on which studies it reviewed when approving the device.