Modern medicine is continuing to push forward its love affair with technology—and as a result, some pretty strange innovations are emerging.
Ever on the hunt for the perfect drug delivery method, the pharmaceutical industry is in the process of commercializing “medicinal microchips,” which can be implanted or swallowed in a sort of digital pill, then made to serve all sorts of functions.
The project first formed around the idea of an “ingestible sensor”—a microchip that could be added to pharmaceutical pills, and which could track vital biometrics, including heart rate, body position, and activity level. These sensors can also track exactly what medication has been ingested, and when. All this data can then be transmitted to an associated app, and even passed on to caregivers and doctors.
Medical microchip developers like MIT professors Robert Langer and Michael Cima didn’t stop there, though. They took this cyborg-like technology a step further by designing a microchip that can carry drugs within it and take care of precise delivery for years. “You could literally have a pharmacy on a chip. You can do remote control delivery, and you can deliver multiple drugs.”[1]
Profits and privacy
In case the following fact didn’t sink it, it’s worth highlighting again: these microchips can be controlled remotely to release whatever drug into your body the operating doctor sees fit.
The manufacturer of this technology that can turn doctors into puppeteers, Microchip Biotech, recently partnered with Teva Pharmaceutical, and it’s estimated that their product will make it market as early as 2017.
Microchip Biotech claims that their innovation will increase patient adherence—that is, the percentage of time that patients take their medication exactly as directed. Proteus Digital Health, the manufacturer of the original ingestible sensor, estimates that up to 50% of patients don’t receive the full benefit of prescribed pharmaceuticals due to non-adherence.[2]
Furthermore, a report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine stated that Americans who don’t stick to their drug regimens incur up to $289 billion annually in additional medical expenses.[3]
This paints an awfully rosy portrait of Big Pharma, though, given its (well-deserved) reputation as an insensitive, profit-hungry machine. It seems strange that these bigwigs would work so hard just to ensure that Americans save on medical expenses—until you follow the money.
An article published in Pharma Marketing News (a marketing journal for the drug industry) demonstrated that encouraging adherence can also be massively profitable. In fact, a mere 18% increase in compliance translates into increased revenues of $8,000 per patient annually (which, of course, means billions of dollars for drug companies).[4]
And profiteering is just the beginning. The existence of wirelessly controlled digital pills brings up a number of important questions surrounding security and privacy.
If you think medical confidentiality is hard now to enforce now, just think of when all of your medical data is wirelessly beamed from inside your body to waiting doctors. The developers of this technology claim that the microchips would be very difficult for hackers to gain control of, but even they admit that it’s a possibility worth protecting against.
Even if all of these issues are set aside, consenting to this drug delivery method still requires a massive (and perhaps unwarranted) amount of trust in your administering doctor. It’s worth assuming that most doctors would never intentionally use this technology for ill, but it certainly does present the opportunity for an unprecedented level of control over the population’s health.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has played a prominent role in the funding and development of medical microchips
And it’s certainly isn’t comforting that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has played a prominent role in the funding and development of medical microchips. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to be worried by their undesirable project track record: GMO agriculture, controversial vaccines, pesticide-contaminated clothing, expansion of oil industry, a frightening interest in “population control,” and more.
Long term health effects?
Lastly, no one really knows what the long-term health effects of implantable microchips will be. There’s been one round of human tests, in which microchips were used to administer the osteoporosis drug teriparatide to women between the ages of 65 to 70. The study was considered a “stunning” test run of this new technology, and no side effects were observed.[5]
Then again, positive results are to be expected when a study is funded and wholly carried out by the company that manufactured the tech being tested. And besides, observing the administration of twenty doses of one medication is hardly enough evidence to conclude that a delivery method has no long-term adverse side effects.
Apparently it’s enough evidence to justify releasing microchips to the public, though (after all, Big Pharma loves using the public as guinea pigs).
It may be very well be the case that these microchips represent a positive and important step forward for medicine—but unfortunately, the industries in charge of commercializing it don’t make it very easy for us to trust them.
As always, all we can do is meet such innovations with open-minded skepticism—and remember that technology can only take us so far when it comes to taking charge of our health.
References
[1] http://news.mit.edu/2012/wireless-drug-delivery-0216
[2] http://www.proteus.com/press-releases/u-s-fda-accepts-first-digital-medicine-new-drug-application-for-otsuka-and-proteus-digital-health/
[3] http://news.mit.edu/2015/implantable-drug-delivery-microchip-device-0629
[4] http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/microchip-laden-drugs-given-fda-approval
