Ill dentist hopes to soon be fitted with new ID chip

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Jeff Jacobs' neck is fused to his spine at a slightly downward angle, making it painful for him to look straight ahead without leaning back. He takes up to 10 medications a day for a number of other ailments, and several times he has nearly died.

One of his family's biggest worries is that he could become sick and unable to speak for himself in an emergency.

But thanks to a tiny computer chip that can be implanted in his body and scanned for personal and medical information, those fears may be eased.

Jacobs, his wife, Leslie, and their 14-year-old son, Derek, could become the nation's first family to be fitted with the device, called VeriChip.

The VeriChip, made by Applied Digital Solutions in Palm Beach County, is about the size of a grain of rice. It would be injected under a person's skin, probably in the arm, and could be read only by scanners.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration said it will not regulate the implant as long as it contains no medical data. However, agency officials have said they would step in if any medical records were included in the chip. Discussions between Applied Digital Solutions and the FDA are ongoing, but approval to include medical information is probably several months away at the earliest.

Similar technology has been used in the past few years on millions of dogs and cats as a way to identify the pets if they are lost or stolen.

Applied Digital says the chip can provide instant access to a patient's medical records, which is especially valuable in emergencies or in situations in which the patient is unconscious and unable to provide a medical history or, say, allergies to any medications. It could, for example, be used to identify and diagnose a lost Alzheimer's patient.

Ultimately, the chips could be coupled with global-positioning satellites to locate Alzheimer's patients who have wandered off, or find kidnapping victims — an idea the company hopes to market in Latin America.

The chip could also be used as a security tool.

"It can be used as an inexpensive method to gain entry into a secure power plant, the cockpit of an airplane, or any place where a high level of authentication is required for entrance to a building," said Keith Bolton, Applied Digital vice president and chief technology officer. "It's a lot less expensive than retina scanning or thumbprint recognition equipment."