Pharmaceutical 'smart pills' will soon be pushed on a sick population.
Ever since the digital age began, almost everything has gone digital. Shortly there will be a ‘smart pill’ that will be able to transmit information about your body’s insides to a patch on your arm with the information being collected via a Bluetooth connection. http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/ia1715chips-graphicjpg-6290634.html
Seems very high tech and impressive, but will there be any repercussions? We may never know, since the fields of pharmacology and medicine seem to push technology at any and all costs, even to the point of misinformation. Here’s why I allege that: Humans are taking more costly chemical medications now than any time in recorded history and the human race, especially USA citizens, are sicker than ever. Examples: Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity rates escalate yearly with more and more people—and children too—experiencing chronic diseases, something kids didn’t experience until the last two generations, especially since vaccinations have been touted as ‘life savers’, promoted and even mandated.
According to the British newspaper, The Independent online, [1]
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.
The apparent reason for such a ‘smart pill’ is to track and probably check on the efficacy of the numerous prescription medications and drugs humans are now taking on a daily basis. In essence, each pill would be ‘time stamped’ as it disintegrates within the stomach and that information could be relayed to anyone who wishes to access that information via the proper connection or device.
According to The Independent online,
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.
Sounds impressive! Okay, has anyone considered the reactions such an artificially produced electrical current in the body may produce with naturally occurring circadian rhythms? How about electrical currents interfering with heartbeats and heart rhythms? Or, will that be another reason for additional medications? Perhaps that type of adverse effect will be considered an ‘acceptable risk’ similar to what’s going on with vaccines and ‘herd immunity’, especially no safety nor efficacy tests performed when children are given multivalent shots or several vaccines individually at the same doctor’s office visit.
Then, here’s another question for the smart pill developers: Can your ‘smart pill’ track vaccines too? Can it show where toxic adjuvants are traveling to and storing in the body? If it can’t, maybe it ought to, as that would be an exceptionally high tech way to prove that vaccines either do or do not contribute to health problems children allegedly experience after being vaccinated, some even to the point of death.
But then, how could a parent get such a ‘smart pill’ into a newly born infant to trace the Hepatitis B vaccine given within 24 hours of birth, or at 2, 4, or 6 months of age to trace vaccines? Is that an insurmountable problem for the ‘smart pill’ developers?
The ‘smart pill’ is being developed under the auspices of a joint USA and UK pharmaceutical endeavor. So, what’s the probable real reason? The Independent news article reported,
Unused prescription medicines are estimated to cost the NHS nearly £400m a year.
and I’d be inclined to agree, it just may be money.
Unused prescription costs are “estimated” at 400 Million British Pounds a year. Any figure that’s estimated, in my opinion, is problematic and usually is proffered as an end-run tactic to get approval. What are the real statistics?
As far as I’ve been able to ascertain in 2009, British healthcare consumers used/purchased 886 million items that were prescribed, and cost £8,529 million, which represented close to 15 percent of the National Health Services total costs.
These new edible ‘smart pill’ microchips will cost about another £50 per week. See what I mean?
Sources:
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-chips-that-are-good-for-your-health-6290700.html accessed Jan. 17, 2012.
Photo Credit: Okko Pyykko