devarim

My gut feeling -- and, again, I am not a rabbi (I'm not even frum these days) and I'm not an engineer -- is that while the privacy implications here totally creep me out, there wouldn't be a halachic problem.

There are two possible issues that come to mind regarding Shabbos: carrying without an eruv, and the unnecessary use of electronic devices.

For the former, I don't know whether having something implanted in your body would fall under the category of "carrying." I know of cases where it isn't -- your pacemaker example; the metal rod in my brother's leg -- but those are admittedly health-related. I'd love to see some sources on this, but I'm guessing this will turn out not to be a problem, especially if we're granting a potential health benefit here.

For the latter, as I understand it, RFID chips are passive. They don't use electricity; they react to radio transmissions from scanners. The comparison might be to a bar-code: it doesn't do anything just by existing; a scanner reads it by seeing its coding accomplished using the visible spectrum (that is, black and white). RFID is similar, just using wavelengths we can't see. That being the case, simply having a RFID chip in oneself wouldn't be a Shabbos violation. Being scanned on Shabbos would likely be another story, though, with the analogous issues to consider being security cameras and electric-eye doors.

As for mutilation of the body, unless I'm missing something, I don't see why this would be different from other elective surgery, or, for that matter, getting an innoculation. (You wouldn't get a flu shot on Shabbos, but you wouldn't worry about punching a hole in your skin to administer it either. Granting for the sake of the argument that these chips will facilitate faster, more accurate medical care, it'd seem to be on a comparable level of protecting one's health.)

But again, this is me rambling. If there are arguments to the contrary (or some in support), I'd love to hear 'em.

If I'm not mistaken, purely cosmetic surgery (breast augmentation, rhinoplasty, etc.) is strongly frowned upon as well, for two reasons. First, going under the knife entails some measure of risk, and int he case of elective surgery, that risk is not outweighed by a direct medical benefit. This reason doesn't seem to apply here, since I don't thinkt he FDAA has discovered any health risk to having the chips implanted. However, as far as I know, cosmetic surgery is considered a mutilation of the body, halachicly speaking. Just because it makes you look better doesn't make it not a mutilation. Tattoos can be pretty, too, but we're not supposed to do that. (I still haven't even figured out why I'm allowed to have pierced ears.)

I've heard that cosmetic surgery is permissible in limited circumstances. Some are more obvious--a breast reduction to ease severe, chronic back pain--whereas others turn on fuzzier issues, such as whether a particularly hideous scar will have an impact on one's livelihood.

As for the carrying issue, I now tend to agree that it's not a problem here. Something that is semi-permanently implanted, even if not for the purposes of pikuah nefesh, is considered as part of the body. Here I am thinking of an IUD: A woman using one is still permitted to walk outside the eruv on Shabbat, and it does not constitute a chatzitzah for the purposes of mikvah immersion. By contrast, a woman who has inserted a moch dachuk would not be permitted to walk outside the eruv on Shabbat, because the moch is not protecting the body.

Enough babbling from me this morning...more discussion is of course welcome!

I'm a med student and I honestly can't see these devices as all that helpful. You're right that medical personnel take a better safe than sorry approach in emergencies and it's a rare situation in which a person is soooo debilitated that they couldn't transmit important, life-saving information in an emergency.

Really, I can think of two such cases: someone who is "found down", as was the case in the NYC ER I rotated through, frequently. No witnesses, no idea what happened, often mind-altering substances are involved. A few quick tests (blood gas, blood sugar, EKG, etc) gives the personnel enough information to at least stabilize a person and often, bring them back to consciousness enough to answer some questions (eg, are you diabetic? are you epileptic?) that can direct further therapy.

Another would be a serious trauma with loss of consciousness but in such a case, even with such a chip, prior health information is less relevant than the patient's present status which can change from minute to minute. I don't need to know such a person's cholesteriol from last month: I need his blood pressure *right now*. OK, maybe the potential wastage of precious O negative blood is a good point but, given that transfusion reaction can be rapidly fatal, as a healthcare provider, I don't know that I'd trust the information on a chip about that. Blood type doesn't change but antigens on red blood cells do depending on whether a person ahs received chemotherapy, blood or other products transfused, and these antigens are tested when one is typed for blood, as well.

And honestly, with the new HIPAA regualtions, I can't see this happening.

I think I have to agree on the lack of usefulness of the chips in general. I can think of info that would be useful to have on there. For example, "I'm allergic to bee stings, peanuts and tree nuts and the following fifty-five types of antibiotics, am asthmatic and have anaphylactic reactions, please administer epipen." or "I'm allergic to nuts and peanuts but also to sulfites, so DO NOT ADMINISTER EPIPEN. I carry unpreserved epinephrine." (Not me, but these are real examples of friends of mine.) On the other hand, who says the first responder has access to the technology for reading such a thing as an implanted chip, and how would you update the information? One of these friends wears a Medic-Alert bracelet, (even in the mikveh -- she *never* takes it off) and if the other doesn't, she should, but I do know she carrys her epi even without an eruv. A Rabbi told her to, but suggested it would be better if she had some special pockets sewn into her clothes for that purpose. But Medic-Alert bracelets can be read by anyone who reads English -- you don't need special equipment.

The thought about passive RFID chips probably not being a Shabbos problem is interesting, because I was wondering that when Walmart was pilot testing its tagging of products for inventory control and other market research that scared people when they found out about it. Basically RFID tags on everything... clothing, sneakers, etc.

They need to make them easier to implant... then we could tag potential terrorists by pretending to innoculate them. Okay, I'm not really for such underhanded actions, just frustrated that no one seems to be able to stop them.

There is electricity involved, by the way, even if there's no battery.