Arphid Watch: The Verichip 222

Link: Patients, doctors staying away from implantable RFID chips | CNET News.com.

Only 222 medical patients in total have opted to get RFID chips from VeriChip implanted as of the end of 2006, according to documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of its initial public offering. It's a modest number, the company says, and revenue for these systems is far below projections.

"To date, we have only generated approximately $0.1 million in revenue ($100,000) from sales of the microchip inserter kits, significantly less than we had projected at the beginning of 2006. We may never achieve market acceptance or more than nominal or modest sales of this system," the company stated.

The slow sales will likely hearten the many critics of the company. When the company first began touting the technology nearly three years ago, it was criticized by civil libertarians, who saw the chips as a gateway to privacy erosion, and by religious consumers some of whom said that implantable chips were the mark of the beast.

In its SEC filing, the company stated that many patients are probably unwilling to get chipped, the company said, and doctors have likely been reluctant to discuss the procedure with clients. Privacy issues and bad publicity have also been factors.

(((etc etc... Waiting for the next shoe to drop, they're gonna do something dramatic...either that or fold up shop and go home, and that prospect, I don't believe.))))