Pills With Digestible Microchips Approved By US Drug Agency 163
ananyo writes "Digestible microchips embedded in drugs may soon tell doctors whether a patient is taking their medications as prescribed. The 'digital pills' are the first ingestible devices approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The pills contain a sand-particle sized sensor, consisting of a minute silicon chip containing trace amounts of magnesium and copper. When swallowed, it generates a slight voltage in response to digestive juices, which conveys a signal to the surface of a person's skin where a patch then relays the information to a mobile phone belonging to a healthcare-provider. Currently, the FDA, and the analogous regulatory agency in Europe have only approved the device based on studies showing its safety and efficacy when implanted in placebo pills. But Proteus Digital Health, the manufacturer, hopes to have the device approved within other drugs in the near future."
Am I the only one that finds this creepy? (Score:5, Insightful)
“About half of all people don’t take medications like they’re supposed to,” says Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla,California. “This device could be a solution to that problem, so that doctors can know when to rev up a patient’s medication adherence.”
You know, I kind of like the idea of deciding for myself what medication I take and when. The idea of my doctor trying to make me ingest a sensor like I'm some sort of medical prisoner is more than a little creepy to me. What's next, is he going to give me forced ball-shock treatments if I refuse to eat healthy?
Re:Am I the only one that finds this creepy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one that finds this creepy? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I kind of like the idea of deciding for myself what medication I take and when. The idea of my doctor trying to make me ingest a sensor like I'm some sort of medical prisoner is more than a little creepy to me. What's next, is he going to give me forced ball-shock treatments if I refuse to eat healthy?
You are exactly the reason we need devices like this. Either take the medication as prescribed OR don't take any medication. But stop selectively breeding resistant bacteria that impact EVERYONE else.
Uh oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one that finds this creepy? (Score:4, Insightful)