"Lifesavers in their arms"

Twice when she was a teenager, Nick Minicucci's daughter, Molly, fell unconscious, and he had to rush her to a hospital.

Luckily, Minicucci was there both times to tell doctors Molly was in a diabetic coma, and what medication she needed. Otherwise, mystified emergency room personnel might have lost precious time diagnosing and treating the comatose girl.

Now, patients can have a computer chip embedded in an arm to provide an electronic link to their medical information when they can't communicate or don't have someone to speak for them.

Diabetics may be among the first New Jerseyans offered the choice of having subcutaneous chips implanted to give health-care workers access to their medical records.

The Molly Foundation for Diabetes Research at Hackensack University Medical Center will try out the cutting-edge technology, called the VeriChip System, if the hospital agrees to it, Nick Minicucci said.

If a person such as a diabetic has the implant and is brought to an emergency room unconscious, "the chip will be able to tell the doctor or nurse what medication they're on and what dose," said Minicucci, founder and president of the Molly Foundation.

Though critics have already raised privacy concerns about the chip, advocates, including Minicucci, see only benefits. Ready access to patients' medical histories, including previous illnesses or drug allergies, could save lives, said Minicucci, 57, of Ramsey.

VeriChip, developed by a retired New Jersey surgeon, was recently approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. The implant is strictly voluntary and requires physician authorization.

The VeriChip is contained in a tiny glass capsule the size of a grain of rice. It is inserted with a needle into the back of the upper arm, beneath the skin in a simple outpatient procedure.

Applied Digital Solutions of Delray Beach, Fla., which makes the VeriChip, is offering scanners - which read the chip and cost $650 each - to 200 trauma centers nationwide, including Hackensack, for free, as part of a promotional campaign.

The personal medical-link microchip makes its debut in the fast-evolving health-care field as doctors and hospitals move toward computerizing all their paperwork. Last month, for example, Massachusetts became the first state to start a pilot "eHealth" project that will eventually give doctors access to patients' records stored at any hospital or clinic through a statewide electronic data-retrieval system.

Patient implant links would be a natural extension or entry to such a system.

Medical personnel use a hand-held scanner to read a unique, 16-digit identification number on the chip, which emits a low-frequency radio signal from a tiny antenna. That number enables them to call up the person's medical information in a secure database via the Internet.

Each chip costs about $200, and implantation another $200. Doctors call the procedure "being chipped" and say it will save lives.

But some critics compare the implant to supermarket bar coding or cattle branding. They warn it will further erode personal privacy, which is already being lost to DNA testing, genetic profiling, fingerprinting, optical scans, credit cards, E-ZPass, Social Security numbers, drivers' licenses, passports, telemarketing databases, surveillance cameras and other information-gathering systems.

"Technology has moved at the speed of light, but laws protecting privacy are in the Stone Age," said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.

"I can't think of a more private thing than medical records," she said. "So significant dialogue and policymaking needs to be established prior to using such technology" as the chip, she said.

There must be public discussion about "how information will be protected or corrupted; about people getting access, hacking or manipulating records," Jacobs said.

Rep. Robert E. Andrews, D-Haddon Heights, an advocate of genetic privacy laws, said the chip must be kept strictly voluntary.

"If someone chooses to have such an implant, then it should be legal and encouraged. ... But the idea of a hospital implanting a chip without permission is illegal, and should stay illegal," Andrews said.

Although he favors DNA profiles of convicted felons, "I don't see what law enforcement purpose there would be to have [their] medical records available, unless it's related to violent crime, such as people who deliberately infect others with HIV, but only in that case," he said.

The question is not the technology, but how it is used, Andrews said.

Dr. Richard Seelig, the retired Montville surgeon who helped develop VeriChip, said fears about Big Brother are unfounded.

The chip "is a process initiated by an individual, not by a government entity," Seelig said in an interview from Florida. "A person has a choice.

"The chip is a reversible biometric. It can be removed as simply as a large splinter," thus eliminating the link to personal information, he added.

"One important thing to remember is that this is a medical device, and as such people need to provide consent. People can't be told to get a medical procedure.

"That's the way the laws are structured. Our mission is to comply with all existing or future laws."

Consent is needed from people who hold power of attorney for patients, such as some nursing home residents who cannot speak for themselves, before a chip can be implanted, he said.

After retiring from medicine, Seelig, 58, became a consultant on surgical hardware identification for Applied Digital, which also pioneered implantable identification tags for pets. During the days following 9/11, Seelig watched worried rescue workers at Ground Zero writing their badge numbers on their skin with ink markers in case they perished in the rubble.

"With my clinical experience, I realized there was an urgent need for more personal identification," he recalled.

Five days after the attack, Seelig had himself implanted with two of the veterinary chips and began adapting the concept to a human version that became the VeriChip. He had chips in both his forearm and hip, because "I had more questions than one site could answer."

The chips will be available commercially this month, Seelig said. Implants will be invaluable for treating auto accident, gunshot and other severe trauma victims. But their most important use will be for patients with chronic degenerative illnesses, especially those that impair their mental state such as Alzheimer's disease, he said.

Different types of chips will be used as identification for security access and financial transactions, he said. The medical chip is compliant with confidentiality requirements of the 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, Seelig said.

"The implant is HIPAA-friendly, because it doesn't convey a name or any information identifier, only a number," he said.

Dr. Michael Gerardi of Morristown Memorial Hospital also thinks the chip conforms to HIPAA.

"We're heavily invested in electronic medical records," said Gerardi, chief of pediatric emergency medicine at Morristown. "We're all concerned with HIPAA, and we do everything we can to maintain security and protect information."

The government created HIPAA to ensure privacy in electronic billing transactions, Gerardi said. Chip implants will not compromise security, because only health-care providers will have the scanners for reading them, he said. Gerardi carries a VeriChip model on a key chain.

"This is a very exciting thing," said Gerardi, a past state chapter president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. "The computer could really make a big difference for caregivers worried that their loved ones show up in an emergency department, and no one will know their critical information.

"Everything has its drawbacks and its positives," he added. "I refuse to let civil libertarians get in the way of a good idea. People out there fear information on a chip. They fear Big Brother. I think that's nonsense.

"I think life's more important than the remote possibility of loss of confidentiality. [With the chip] you can markedly improve the efficiency, accuracy and safety of care to people unable to communicate their health needs."

Minicucci agrees.

"Tell me about Big Brother when your daughter or loved one is run over by a truck," he said. "I don't want to hear about it."