Big Brother to track your medication compliance with electronic transmitters in pills

[cory777]

Source: Natural News

(NaturalNews) Now that the U.S. government has achieved its monopoly over health care, new technologies are in the works that will allow the government to remotely monitor and track whether ordinary citizens are complying with taking medications prescribed by conventional doctors. One new technology described at the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging allows "pills to be electronically outfitted with transmitters" which would track the patient's compliance with medications and broadcast that information back to government health care enforcers who check for "compliance and efficacy."

"Emerging technologies allow pills to be electronically outfitted with transmitters to communicate with the user's wristwatch that shows that the pill has been consumed," said University of Virginia professor Robin Felder at the committee meeting. "Broadband connectivity of these devices would allow the electronic medical record to be updated with regard to medication compliance and efficacy."

This would allow government health operators, for example, to know whether you've taken all your prescribed psychiatric medications. If you veer from the course of pharmaceuticals prescribed by your doctor, health care enforcement agents could be dispatched to your door to make sure you start taking your pills.

Parents who currently attempt to protect their children from toxic medical therapies such as chemotherapy could be closely monitored by government medical enforcement agents. If you try to flush dangerous pharmaceuticals down the toilet instead of actually taking them, the lack of an electronic tracking signal will let your health care observers know you didn't really take the pills.

Read more: http://www.naturalnews.com/028663_health_care_technology.html

[orleans]

1. now does this sound completely crazy or what? n/t

[TheMadMonk]

5. Yes and no. One of the police's biggest headaches is dealing with...

...mentally ill people who in another age would have locked away from where they could cause harm to others, but today are stabilised by medications and free to participate in society.

Mentally ill people who for one reason or another sometimes decide to go off those meds. I could certainly see a system like this being mandated for such individuals as a condition of release back into society. I can also see a court ordering it for cases where parents refuse mainstream medical treatment for their children. I don't see its intended uses including making sure that you and I take our full course of antibiotics.

I can also see it being easily defeated by dropping the pills in a glass of vinegar, or a pool of vomit, depending on the exact method of activation.

[napi21]

2. Ah yea, I'm seein that happen! NOT! nt

[RandomThoughts]

3. Here is the problem with that.

We're monitoring you for your own good

That is a presumption that in a free society has to be shown in a way that follows some legal societal system.

It would require courts, and laws agreed to by society, and for only reasons agreed by society after an open system made that judgement.


The big brother systems of control or monitoring are not based on some legal justification of what society wants, but the desires of a few to add power to a status quo control mechanism.



If there were hearings showing that some parent was putting a child's life in danger, and society agreed it has the right to intervene in that instance, then there is an argument for such measures.

But most of those things become not agreed on, not court based, nor society approved, or if approved with the boot of economic threat like chipping to get a job would be.

So I do have many libertarian views on issues of control, where I am different then the libertarian is thinking government is behind such things, and not the bigger money players in non representative systems like corporations or aristocracy. Or even if social government does such things, it is the people behind them that cause it if manipulations are used to get there support.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Bat. Shit. CRAZ-EEEEEEEE.

Articles like this give snake oil a bad name.

BTW, pill transmitters have been used since the 1960s -- generally for diagnosing alimentary disorders. There are much better ways to measure compliance -- like asking the patient if s/he took the pills.

--d!

[dkf]

6. Can constant bombardment by transmitters be ok in the long run?

I dunno. Wouldn't it be just great if we find it causes cancer. :(

[flow_urgirl]

7. this is such a governmental control and abuse of the body

Yeah they're gonna say Hi Dr Nick..yeah sure. Lose the wristwatches, what are they going to do if you lose it a little too often? Cut off your wrists because you won't respond to drug company money foul playing the people and polluting the earth?! Stopping people from living since before I was born thats for sure. Stopping people from having freedom and the right to choose and also to self control. Self determination of what is right for the body. Overpowerment of these people's lives and rights to live as free. Wrong way to go about dealing with it especially when the people become so resigned to the fix it and shut up mentality. Fuck that is wrong! I have been recently expressing myself with this very issue...

http://www.myspace.com/samanthalouiseaunglemary

[Igel]

16. Yes, but not much worse than some instances now.

Take my brother in law. He was locked up, and released when he said he would stay on his meds. They asked his family to monitor him; they checked up on him. He was allowed no mistakes. Being homicidal and psychotic will do that to you.

If he hadn't agreed he would stay on his meds, if he hadn't had his family around to monitor him, if he failed a check-up, then a nice county officer would show up every morning to supervise his ingestion of his medications. And, should my brother in law refuse to take the medication under court-ordered supervision, he'd be locked up again and be taking his meds when a nice nurse handed them to him--or when he was tied down and the pills forced down his gullet.

That is governmental control and abuse of the body. The little pills in the OP? No worse.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. They can be disabled if you wear tin foil underpants.

[trotsky]

9. It's very difficult to take anything the "Health Ranger" says seriously.

I'd like to get another perspective on this bill before jumping to the wild-ass conclusions Adams does.

[sailor65]

10. What nonsense

There are so many things wrong with this article from a technical point of view I don't even know where to start. While it's possible the government might "Want" to be able to do it, there is no "Emerging technology" that would make this effective or practical in the least.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. "... said University of Virginia professor Robin Felder...."

For the record, he's no dummy.

University of Virginia professor Robin Felder

[trotsky]

14. No, but even extremely smart people can be quote-mined. n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

12. " Now that the U.S. government has achieved its monopoly over health care". What Bulls**t!!

Starting with that statement makes anything else written there unbelievable.

[superduperfarleft]

13. Can we now put to rest the controversy over whether Natural News is a legitimate source for health

information? Because this article clearly shows that it is not.

[Abq_Sarah]

15. While the article is alarmist

The Senate committee did hold hearings on e-care last week:

http://aging.senate.gov/hearing_detail.cfm?id=324102&

The potential for abuse exists but that doesn't mean the technology will be abused, particularly if it's used strictly on a voluntary basis.