Supersonic Needle-Less Injector a la Star Trek

Doofus writes "Yahoo is carrying some Reuters copy about a new injector device that sounds like the 'hypo' from Star Trek. It's a needle-less injector that uses helium to inject powdered medicine through the skin at supersonic speeds. The future is almost here! The manufacturers have been working on this product since at least 1993, and expect it to go into production in 2001."

Site of the company here

[Raindeer]

Powderject [powderject.com] has an interesting site. It shows some models of what their products should look like. They are now working on three products:

PowderJect Lidocaine for local anesthesia

PowderJect Hepatitis B DNA Vaccine

PowderJect Alprostadil for male erectile dysfunction

The last one should get all the lame AC's going... :-)

There are also some realvideo's of the product. I am just glad that this removes the need for needles in alot (though probably not all) cases

Injections without Needles

[Detritus]

What is the advantage of this over the old device that uses high pressure air? If you have been in the U.S. military, you are familiar with the vaccine "guns" used for mass immunizations of military personnel.

on display.

[Zurk]

the star trek museum/display in seattle had a needle less injector in a display case using high pressure air last time i saw it a while back (1997).

Freakin painful that's why

[spineboy]

I had one once and it hurt like a sun-ova-biyatch
That's why this would be beneficial....Plus the little kiddies would like i if it were truely painless