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RFID Labels On Prescription Drug Bottles
sonik1 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the Food and Drug Administration and several major drug makers are expected to announce an agreement Monday to put tiny radio antennas on the labels of millions of medicine bottles to combat counterfeiting and fraud. RFID labels provide a unique identifier that is almost impossible to copy. When pharmacists receive delivery, they should be able to pass a wand over the bottles and, through an online database, check the history of each. Each label costs 20 to 50 cents."
1) charge 20 to 50 per RFID label
2) Opt out
3) ???
4) Profit!!!
So I can save 20 to 50 cents on my perscription by choosing not to purchase the RFID label? 5 or 6 perscription you woule have saved enough get a cheap bottle of wine.
Initially, the expense of the system will be considerable. Each label costs 20 to 50 cents. The readers and scanners cost thousands of dollars. But because the medicines tend to be very expensive and the need to ensure their authenticity is great, officials said, the expense is justified.
As if my three prescription drugs don't cost enough already (and my co-pays continue to increase) I am going to have to subsidize a possible invasion of my privacy as well? Are they going to insure that before I leave that pharmacy counter that the tag's information will be wiped?
I certainly don't want to be heading towards the door with Oxy and have some hi-tech thief scan me and follow me home to rob me of the drugs I just purchased... Perhaps even someone could scan important/famous people and either blackmail them for their drug purchases (HIV/STDs) or just blatantly report it to the Fish Wrappers for cash.
Costs are still far too high for individual consumer goods, like the amber bottles that pharmacies use to dispense pills to individuals. But prices are expected to plunge once radio labels become popular, so drug makers represent an important set of early adopters.
Once it does become viable for individual consumer bottles there will be yet another excuse why the prices need to continue to go up. Everything needs to cost more especially in the pharmaceutical industry. I swear everyone is in on it. I am told I need three low dose drugs when I have a feeling that a higher dose of another would handle it just fine. I am told that I am being prescribed these particular drugs because my coverage is good enough to afford it... It all leads to more money for everyone.
This still doesn't stop someone from switching the drugs once they arrive at the pharmacy.
Counterfeit drugs are still comparatively rare in the United States, but federal officials say the problem is growing. Throughout the 1990's, the F.D.A. pursued about five cases of counterfeit drugs every year. In each of the last several years, the number of cases has averaged about 20, but law-enforcement officials say that figure does not reflect the extent of the problem.
Then WTF are we doing this? 20 cases of counterfeit drugs yet we have to spend thousands and thousands and pass that on to the consumer. Ugh. Yeah, they are going to say that we need to protect against a possible outbreak of this. Personally, I don't see how a label can help when the medicine inside is what is important. Anyone can swap out the real meds inside for their counterfeit ones.
RFID labels provide a unique identifier that is almost impossible to copy.
Really?
It's a Bagel.
Why does it seem that RFID stories are automatically posted under My Rights Online?
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
because noone would ever tamper with the contents...
comment directly in my journal
So now they can tell which stuff came from canada, ingenious!
Because the Tin Foil Hat(tm) crowd demands it!!!
Well I'm not keen on RFIDs being anywhere, but I suppose there's no point complaining about them being on prescription containers, they already got my name and address on the things so I guess adding an RFID isn't going to make my prescriptions any less private.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Hey, at least its a good excuse to take a vacation to Mexico, and, oh btw, stock up on presription meds like Amoxycilin. Drugs are dirt cheap down there. You'll have to check how much you are legally allowed to bring back though.....
The real path to male liberation
One would assume conterfeit drugs are being sold from unethical pharmacies; how then will giving pharmacies the ability to detect conterfeit drugs be of any use in this situation? Unethical pharmacies will go on selling counterfeit drugs: how are consumers supposed to tell the difference? We don't have RFID readers.
Are they saying counterfeit drugs are being introduced into the supply chain in deliveries from the manufacturers themselves? This is the online thing that these chips will counteract, and at the same time will have numerous disadvantages for the consumer: higher cost any tom dick and harry with a reader knowing what you are buying, continued data mining.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
So that drug companies can keep people from importing drugs from Canada? Same drug, same label, different cost due to state controls. I'm sure the drug companies would consider their own pill a counterfeit under those circumstances. Drug companies could even demand special cash registers to deny sales, and I'm sure that's part of the thousands of dollars worth of cost and the "online" database. Welcome to entertainment style DRM for medicine.
I think I'm going to be sick.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Unless measures are taken to disable the RFID tag once the bottles leave the pharmacy, then this is probably a violation of HIPPA. Pharmacies are not even allowed to put the medications name on the outside of the sack anymore. But this could be read from a distance.
NOT the little brown bottles you bring home.
This will save you MORE than money.This will potentially save you (or your family members) lives as it prevents fake drugs- or at least makes them a lot harder to produce.
The number of fake pills out there is staggering. This is actually a 'good' implementation of RFID.
The only thing this has to do with the little brown bottle you bring home is that it may vist a few cents more (the tag costs like 20 cents, the tagged bottle may fill 10-50 prescriptions). The benefit is that you can be pretty darn sure tha medicine you get is legit.
I think it's worth it.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
Your Rights Online unless you're an online drug dealer or something...
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
RFID tags on the boxes means that it will now be easy for customs to deny entry of cheaper canadian pharmacuticals into the US since their history can't be guaranteed authentic. Remember that the Bush battlecry has been safety and with this you will be able to track drugs Canadian hands which are unsafe by definition since they aren't subjet to US laws.
Looks like the plan is unfolding as it should
Or is it just tin foil hat time?
Why would they be hard to copy?
They're a 10 digit number emitted over RF at 13.57mhz. RFID ain't magic, it's just barcode over AM radio.
Even the physical security guys are starting to realize that perhaps moving all access control to this tech was a profoundly questionable move. Something like a deadpool is forming for the first time someone walks by a TSA agent and electronically pickpockets access to the entire airport. Convenience, eh?
Or at least it is in this case.
I recently co-oped at a large pharmaceutical company and it honestly looks like RFID is a good idea here.
Counterfeit drugs are a serious problem. There are several large counterfeiting operations working out of areas like China that produce product that is so authentic looking that most people (even doctors) can't tell the difference. The only problem is that nobody has any idea as to whether the dosages are correct or if the product was manufactured under sterile conditions. There have already been a few deaths.
I've read quite a few people complaining about how RFID is going to jack up the cost of prescriptions, but I would willingly pay %0.50-$1.00 to guarantee that I'm actually taking what I think I'm taking.
It's your life, though. Feel free to gamble with it if you must.
What worries me is when will the, umm, prescription, umm, drugs that I import from Colombia have RFID tags?
Good luck.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
As if my three prescription drugs don't cost enough already (and my co-pays continue to increase) I am going to have to subsidize a possible invasion of my privacy as well? Are they going to insure that before I leave that pharmacy counter that the tag's information will be wiped?
The article says the tags are for the big bottles the pharmacy receives, not the amber bottles for the consumers. This doesn't seem to be a consumer rights issue at all, mostly.
Woohoo new spam will reach our mailboxes: "Get the ONLY real RFIDed Viagra bottle!"
Home of Faramir Paint Shop Pro scripts
Initially, the expense of the system will be considerable. Each label costs 20 to 50 cents. The readers and scanners cost thousands of dollars.
I would say we will see it up front...as soon as they have to buy this expensive equipment.
As this still doesn't stop anyone from swapping out the pills from a valid rfid'd bottle, the fda's next step will be to demand that an rfid be embedded into each pill.
The only thing that makes sense is that drug companies are looking for a way to restrict sales of re imported drugs. It's not going to stop tampering and we can be sure that counterfeiters will be able to fake the RFIDs no matter what the drug companies do. If you can make one, someone can make one just like it. The only thing I can think of that works is computer enforced regional cost discrimination.
What this system will do is burn a pharmacy that's sold drugs that were bought on the cheap from Canada or South Africa. They own the database that says "counterfeit" and are forcing the pharmacy to buy equipment that respects that database. This will keep drug prices right where the companies want them by giving them a point of sale veto.
Welcome to the wonderful world of computer code law. The drug companies seem to have taken a hint from Holywood pimps and are designing cumbersome and error prone systems to stop anyone who'd try to get around their price structure. They don't care about your privacy or convenience, they just want your money. I'll bet that they even charge the pharmacy a fee for this wonderful new equipment on top of the equipment costs. They were unable to bribe enough state legislatures and get the crazy laws they want. Like DVD players, closed source software and video games, this new equipment will enforce laws that were never written.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What happens to the RFID tag once the bottle has been emptied by the pharmasist ? Put in the drstbin or destroyed ? I can see a nice little earner by the pharmasist/cleaner of collecting these and selling them to a supplier of grey market drugs.
this will also help the current administration with the drugs from Canada issue. Now they can say: "The ones from Canada got no antennas so we can't allow them in!"
http://www.terratoday.com - Environmental news, discussions & more!
Some readers appear to be missing the fact that this only applies to the large jugs of pills that the pharmacists receive. Your individual pill bottle will not have this antenna.
For now at least... I'd imagine that if this is succesful, that consumer bottles will be next on the list, where they'll likely meet the same kind of debate that RFID tags are now dealing with.
This will SAVE consumers money, of course!
By preventing fraud (and cheaper imports), the pharmaceutical companies will protect their investment, which will naturally lead to LOWER COSTS! It's a win/win situation!!!
You, the consumer, should embrace this, just as you should embrace DRM, because when companies don't have to enforce their IP, they pass those savings on to YOU!
Hey, that sh!t's worked before...
are you getting the big jars of pills that the pharmacists get?
RTFA
RFID tags have a VERY limited range. a few feet at most. to scan someone, you would have to be nearly touching them. you couldn't wardrive for narcotics, like one poster mentioned.
the tags are only on the large bottles that pharmicies get. the kind that has about 1000 or so pills in it. that is about 33 perscripions. so $0.50/33= $0.0001.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Nice troll. What the heck, I'll bite.
1. RTFA. The RFIDs are on the bulk packaging received at the pharmacy, they are not on the small containers doled out to the customers.
2. Why would a junkie, desperate for his next hit, be driving around in a vehicle, with expensive remote-RFID sensing equipment, looking for prescription drugs? Why wouldn't he just sell the laptop/van and buy the heroin he wants?
3. Where would this highly-sophisticated, highly-educated, well-equipped drug addict get a copy of the confidential RFID tag database that he would need in order to make the connection that ID # 8736704385748932 is Penicillin? And if he is capable of hacking (oops, sorry, I mean "cracking") into Pfizer's mainframe and stealing databases, why wouldn't he instead just steal a credit card database?
4. When did anyone invent an RFID reader capable of reading passive RFID tags at a range greater than 3 yards, let alone the 75 feet from the street to your medicine cabinet?
5. Why wouldn't the junkie just skulk around a rich neighborhood, pick a big, dark house that looks empty, with no security alarm stickers in the window, break in, steal the jewelry, and pawn it for drugs? Why go through all the trouble/hassle of war-driving, reading a bunch of RFID tags for foot cremes, when the cheap, classic, time-tested methods still work just fine?
In what world do drug addicts have the intelligence, financial means, and patience to do the ridiculous things you suggest?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
If you're that worried then unhook the battery and antenna attached to your bottle of v14g4r4 that will be required to broadcast the RFID through not only the medicine cabinet, but through the walls of your house.
RFID comes in both passive and active flavors and the passive kind that will unquestionably be used in pill bottles has a range that will - at best - be measured in inches. Not only that, but wardriving involves listening for signals that are already out there. To get a passive RFID read you need to transmit a signal - and cruising around the neighborhood broadcasting like that in the hopes that you can pick up the RFID tag on a bottle of p3ni5 pills that are still in the mailbox at the curb (which is as close as you'd have to be) is likely to attract a good deal of attention.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Don't get too close to the pharmacy counter if you have a pacemaker...
EricSpeaking of drugs: Vioxx is Prozac for Laywers
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UQX/is _11_65/ai_81221653
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
About locks & thieves?
"Making more complex locks just makes for more highly skilled thieves, not less thieves."
Basically this is alluding to the fact that good security is not just about making better safes & locks, (because there will always be a thief who will open/crack them), but deciding how to keep the larger portion of the population from profiting off of your "valuable" items.
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
I have a feeling that the junkies wouldn't be doing this themselves. The underground distributers would be the ones getting the drugs via the tags. The junkies would just buy the end product much later from a street dealer flunkie.
According to a story in the Washington Post, the scale of the problem is much larger than "20 cases" might sound like. Each of these cases may involve tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of doses of counterfeit drugs, many of which are resold back to the major pharma companies, so your local drug store can't tell that they came from a shady middleman rather than directly from Merck's factories.
Part of the problem is that Even worse,If you believe that, I have some Ocean Front property in Arizona for sale - Are You Interested?
I can't disclose the precise location because it would be in violation of the DMCA.
RTFA.
RFID proposed for tracking from manufacturer to retailer. You're jug of 5000 Viagra (buy the 10's the 5's are 80% the price and a pill cutteris cheap) will only go up by $.50/$5000.
IMO this particular application is a solution in search of a problem. Drugs are already tracked. Every time a shipment changed hands, someone has to sign for it. Ahh, but the RFID solution is so much easier than taking note of the $8.78/hour warehouse worker wearing $50k in bling and driving a new H2.
What you should really fear is a mass introduction of taggants.
Put these in pizza and burgers and the guys at the waste plant will know who has been eating what and where they have been disposing of the residue.
Video camera with RFID scanner, targeting, automated fire control, and housekeeping will be a boon to the security industry.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
I have no problem paying 20 to 50 cents extra for RFID technology for prescriptions (in principle). As long as it fsucking stays at 20 to 50 cents.
But I can see that little gem of a price rapidly inflating over time for "new advances."
Also, I have to wonder just how much good it will really be at things like combating the rare but extremely dangerous incidents of pharmeceutical human error. Human error is almost always the weakest link in any chain of security/precation.
And what is to stop counterfeit FRID tags, anyway?
My 2 cents...
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
. . . the REAL reason this technology came about is because no one was ever able to figure out how to get a pill bottle through a printer or typewriter . . .
RFID should go in the pill, so they can track this shit from end to end. The pillbottle should have an RFID reader. And cops should be able to set up a few parallax antennae every block or so, and get a live virtual simulation of everyone out there, clickable from medical history to other consumer history, as well as criminal record and secret "Homeland Security" outer joins. Then the RFID silicon should include MEMS that modulate the pill's output in the humans, so cops can inject any chemicals they want into any people or crowds, on demand. Then we should process the criminals into Soylent Green, to be fed first to other criminals, then everyone else.
--
make install -not war
When did anyone invent an RFID reader capable of reading passive RFID tags at a range greater than 3 yards, let alone the 75 feet from the street to your medicine cabinet?
You forgot to mention the tags are inside a metal cabinet in many homes. Somehow I think there is some attenuation involved..
The truth shall set you free!
First thing that comes to mind when I read this is now people will be able to tell who coming out of the drug store has the "good" drugs and who has the crap like antibiotics and "women's ointments".
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Also, the story that drugs are more expensive in the US is largely an urban myth. Patent-protected drugs without significant competitors are more expensive in the US, but because of free-market competition, generics are a lot cheaper here than in Europe or Canada. Malcolm Gladwell wrote an excellent article on this topic in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago:
If drug companies or the FDA were making the US market much more inefficient than European or Canadian markets, this would not be the case. According to Gladwell, pharmaceutical prices in the US have risen only at about the rate of inflation, but pharmaceutical spending has risen much faster because people are taking more drugs than ever before. If pills cost the same as five years ago, but you take twice as many pills, your pharmacy bills will rise and it's not the fault of the drug companies or the FDA.how about- he just copies the RFID of the original case, and dupes it for 3 different shops.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Why was this nut moderated upward?
> RFID tags have a VERY limited range
And what is the limit? It's usually the power received at the RFID. You can either use a larger coil or use a more powerful transmitter. I haven't had trouble receiving the signal back from the tag, but I've had trouble quite a few times powering the tag. A more powerful (read that as illegal) transmitter can greatly increase the range at which you can get an RFID tag to power-up.
The more i think about the more i think your right. The supporters of Liberal Gun laws (NRA) are pretty mental.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
#include "CURRENT_POLITICAL_CLIMATE_DEFINITIONS.h"d e "iostream.h"
a nds);
t e_hands) > A_LOT_OF_$$$) Appeal();
//should never get here
#inclu
bool JudgesRuling(double);
bool CongressApproves();
bool CoperationsArgueBetter();
double MoneysInvolved(double);
void Appeal();
void GoAheadAnyWay();
bool The_System_Works();
int main(int argc,char* argv[]){
bool RFID_tags_become_popular = CONSUMER_APATHY_INDICATOR;
long number_of_consumers = NUMBER_OF_SUCKERS;
long number_of_RFID_readers = CORPERATION_RUTHLESSNESS_INDICATOR;
double massive_amount_of_personal_data_in_private_hands =
RFID_tags_become_popular * number_of_consumers * number_of_RFID_readers * AVG_READS_PER_DAY * AVG_READ_COOKIE_SIZE;
bool RFID_scanning_is_illegal_search =JudgesRuling(massive_amount_of_data_in_private_h
if(RFID_scanning_is_illegal_search){ if(MoneysInvolved(massive_amount_of_data_in_priva
else
printf("You have no Privacy, get over it\n"); endl;
return A_LOT_OF_$$$;
}
return OUTSCOURCED_RFID_PROFITS;
}
bool JudgesRuling(double possible_infraction){
if(CongressApproves()) return false;
else if(MoneysInvolved(possible_infraction) > A_LOT_OF_$$$) return false;
else if(CorperationsArgueBetter()) return false;
else return true;
}
bool CongressApproves(){
if(CorperationsArgueBetter())
return true;
else
return false;
}
bool CorperationsArgueBetter(){
if(A_LOT_OF_$$$ > PROTESTERS_FUNDS)//always true
return true;
else
return false;
}
double MoneysInvolved(double data_recieved){
return data_recieved * NUMBER_OF_SUCKERS * DOLLARS_PER_SUCKER;
}
void Appeal(){
if(The_System_Works())
return;
else
GoAheadAnyWay();
}
void GoAheadAnyWay(){
printf("We will find other methods to make life better for consumers\n");
exit(-1);
}
bool The_System_Works(){
if(A_LOT_OF_$$$ > 0)
return false;
else
return true;
}
May the Maths Be with you!
Look, all this RFID chat is great... Wal-Mart using it on pallets of product, Drug companies tagging shipments with it, even Tesco and their RFID/picture setup. I'm pretty damn sure we can expect to see UPS/FedEx take it on soon as well.... I mean, how simple would THAT be, having a series of tags made up to chirp tracking numbers. Then you can chirp a whole crate as it is being loaded on an airplane and get the individual package responses.
;-)
My complaint is: WHAT ABOUT THE GODDAMN AIRLINES?!?! I've been complaining for _years_ now that the airlines have a ridiculous loss rate in comparison to FedEx or UPS, and now there's a technology that could turn baggage handling into a MUCH more efficient creature and I haven't heard word one about the airlines' attempts at it. Simply put, imagine RFID scanners in the holds of every aircraft, on the exit point of every baggage carousel, etc. Performing a systemwide search would be as simple as querying that package's ID, much as we idealize (and FedEx and UPS leverage) barcoding to create the same tracking record. RFID comes as an advantage in that it can be used to actively monitor items in holding and in transit; e.g. instead of being recorded as the last movement of the package is 'Deposited Into Holding Area B', the 60 second scan record shows that the package is currently located there, or if it has been moved into, say, Holding Area C, without being barcode scanned first. (I know, I'm explaining a simple concept, but the simplicity is what makes most people misunderstand the current setup). Airlines: sit up and take notice... RFID can remove peoples' trust issues with baggage handling for you. Pursue this opportunity, instead of complaining about how broke you are.
love and peace
-cheez
This has been alluded to by a couple of other posters, but what about the situations where the end user *does* get the bulk bottle? I get three-month supplies of prescription drugs via mail for some stuff, and I assure you that the mail-order prescription house is not bothering to remove the drugs from the manufacturer's bulk packaging except where necessary (in my case, one drug in particular comes in bottles of 100 from the manufacturer and my prescription is not for an even number of hundreds, so I'll get a number of manufacturer's bottles and one amber bottle with the difference). I don't think this is a rare case, and as others have already pointed out, pharmacists are quite likely to do the same if they have a manufacturer's bottle of 100 pills and they are filling a script for 100 pills (slap the label on the outside and drop it in the bag).
Several people have pointed out that the RFID number should only reveal a unique identifier that would help if you had the reference database to compare with, but somehow I have the feeling that the folks who are sophisticated enough to run scams that produce lookalike drugs to the point where pharmacists can't tell the difference are probably going to be able to get their hands on that database, or at least on periodic copies of it. Now, if they can get it, why wouldn't they be willing to sell copies to other scumbags who want to use the RFID info for other means? If your script delivery is sitting in your rural-route mailbox, I'd suspect that drive-by RFID reading might just reveal more than you'd care to reveal to everyone who drove by (particularly if the drugs in question have a significant grey-market resale value).
Not all people (think the visually impared, illiterate, non-english speaking, etc) can read the bottles, and some computer assistance can certainly help with the medication...
For us carnivores, "Sucking the marrow out of life" isn't a transcendentalist philosophy but a practical instruction.
In what world do drug addicts have the intelligence, financial means, and patience to do the ridiculous things you suggest?
Hey, I think you are over looking all those smart rich folks that happen to have drug habits. I wouldn't know if they have patience, but if they have the ability to be wealthy, then they most likely do. I wouldn't be worried about this type of criminial mugging me since he most likely makes 10 times as much money as I do. I'd be worried that he is a supplier that could sell imported drugs that have been "verified" to be "good," but aren't. I'd bet that guy could make a few million of that. Why bother mugging people? It is dangerous and low profit.
Hey, at least its a good excuse to take a vacation to Mexico, and, oh btw, stock up on presription meds like Amoxycilin.
I'm sure the original poster knows this, but a quick warning for others:
Please don't take antibiotics unless you are under a doctor's care, and when you do make sure to take all the antibiotics prescribed. Why? Because if you do it wrongly, you can help diseases evolve antibiotic resistance. Superbugs are a big problem, causing increased costs (as people have to use expensive new antibiotics when the old ones become useless) and medical problems up to and including death (when diseases don't don't respond to the expected antibiotics).
So buy all the Xanax and Viagra you need in Mexico, but unless you have a prescription in hand or a doctor in the family, leave that Amoxycilin alone.
Why would a junkie, desperate for his next hit, be driving around in a vehicle, with expensive remote-RFID sensing equipment, looking for prescription drugs? Why wouldn't he just sell the laptop/van and buy the heroin he wants?
Just because the drug addicts you see are bums doesn't mean that bums are the only drug addicts.
I'm using tags now that work 150 feet from the transmitter.
Please re-read my post. I deliberately bolded the word passive for a reason. The RFID tags discussed in the article are passive. There is no such thing as a passive RFID tag that can be read over distanced larger than a few feet, let alone through walls.
Most of the Oxycotin addicts I know are rich housewives.
Rich housewives who will burglarize a home for a small bottle of Prozac or painkillers? Not likely. Breaking and entering takes a special kind of person. And housewives ain't it.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
A well made directional antenna can give you 8x the range. Also, if you add power, you can generally increase the range of a reciever according to the inverse square law (so 4x the power means 2x the range).
I don't think it's out of the question to have an illegal reciever with 100x the power and a really good directional antenna. That would be an increase of roughly 80x. If RFIDs can normally be picked up at 3ft, they'd make it 240 ft.
Medicine cabinets are normally made of metal, aren't they? Specifically, they're normally made of radio frequency blocking metals. In fact, those RFIDs are not put out in plain sight the way that wireless towers are, so it's difficult to even know where they are, and even if you do, you have to hope that radio frequencies aren't being blocked. Even given an increased range, I don't think that trying to figure out what kind of drugs people are carrying from a distance is practical.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Lets say you make 1,000,000,000 pills at a factory of medicine A. Well, you also know that you had a mechanical failure at 12:00pm to 1:00pm that contaminated the sample. Well, you already shipped most of the supply, how can you tell which ones to return/recall? Current system, you can't, you need to send out messages to everyone. RFID is typically more accurate than barcode (barcode scanners need to be aimed and or need human intervention). So, with RFID, you read the label as you fill the bottle, updating the database. And as it goes out on the delivery truck, you read the tag again (at the dock door). Now when you have a inventory problem you can quickly determine which delivery truck it went out on, notive just that one store that got the bad batch, and possible prevent millions in loss. BTW, read range on a 900Mhz tag that is small enough to fit on a bottle is about 3 ft with a 1 Watt (max FCC allows). Relistically there are diminishing returns when the power is turned up and the transmitter tends to drown out the receiver at some point. Bigger tags (4"x4") can be read at 45ft - more like 20ft reliably.
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
obviously the person who marked this "Troll" has never seen Austin Powers. Dude, Take a joke
yes you are paying for them solving one of their problems.... but as the customer you pay for everything. you pay for far more than 30 days worth of pills.... you pay for everything from the headquarters having nice floral arangements to their letterhead.
i have never stolen anything from a Home Depot, yet part of the price i pay for tools and hardware goes for security tags and readers and guards. the system would not work if only the thieves had to pay up for the cost of security.
It comes out to about 1.5 cents...not a one-hundredth of a cent.
You're still right about it being an insignificant amount, but it's 150 times more significant than your calculator said.
Still, you have to take into account the cost of RFID readers for each pharmacy.
A quick search on RFID readers shows them to be between $90 and $1,500, with most falling around the $600 range. Let's assume a pharmacy only sells 100 prescriptions a month (probably not unreasonable for any place outside of Mayberry). If they spread the RFID reader cost out over the first year, then they only add about 50 cents to the price per prescription (and as high as $1.25).
So the grand total extra cost of your prescription is $.52 - $1.27. That doesn't seem very significant in a world where prescriptions cost dozens of dollars.
If it was my life on the line, I'd pay a dollar and a quarter to ensure I got the medicine that would keep me alive instead of one that was switched out by a greedy supplier. If your life isn't worth $1.27, then don't buy the medicine.
Even including the "universal health care tax," Canada and Europe achieve better results (lower infant mortality, longer average lifespans) than the US and at lower cost than the US, regardless whether you measure in dollars per capita or as fraction of GDP.
There is no question that the US system of medicine is quite inefficient compared to other industrial nations. However, drug costs are not a significant contributor to this inefficiency.
The greatest source of inefficiency in the US is that Congress requires insurance companies to pay for state-of-the-art care even when a much cheaper, but inferior treatment would produce almost as good results at a fraction of the price.
Even for the uninsured, physicians and hospitals often choose expensive courses of treatment because saving money with alternatives, which might be marginally inferior but much cheaper, would potentially expose them to lawsuits if things turned out badly.
In Europe, the government will pay for therapy they consider cost-effective and often make you wait for it. If you want something fancier or want faster service, you're free to pay for it yourself. This gives people an incentive to ask whether they really want the state of the art, since it might cost them out of their own pocketbook.
In the US, everyone with insurance is decoupled from market forces and feels entitled to spend unlimited amounts on medical care in exchange for a small annual premium. This is not the way to get a market to operate efficiently.
What a mess.
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In every study I've heard about, antibiotic resistance has never been proven to occur in the general population at a level significantly greater than what can be explained by random genetic mutation.
And the old antibiotics are rarely useless. Even antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains often react to antibioitics, and in combination with other substances (antibiotics or other chemicals), can be killed. IIRC, there are some strains, for example, that are penecillin-resistant, but when penecillin is combined with other chemicals, will keel over and die.
Also, you make it sound like antibiotics are quickly becoming useless. That's patently false. Very, very few bacterial strains in the wild are resistant to any antibiotics. Most resistant strains are resistant to penecillin and/or sulfa. Sulfa was used in the 1930s. Penecillin was discovered in 1929, and has been used since at least the early 1940s. We started seeing some bacterial strains resistant to them after decades of use. Big surprise.
While you -should- do the things you suggest, the correct reasons are A. to avoid wasting antibiotics on a viral infection and B. to avoid a recurrence of a bacterial infection. Don't try to scare people into thinking that so-called superbugs are about to wreck the world. The end is far from near.
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Well, once again, the Administration is trying to bolster their corporate buddies with yet another money-making scheme that solves a problem that does not exist by making them put RFID tags on pharmaceutical bottles, with an eye to getting them onto home-user bottles. Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality? Given that these scannable units are readily readable by hand held monitors that are commercially available, the possibilities for abuse by people who are not supposed to have access to that information are obvious and something that will happen. There are already fears about the abuse of medical record information, including prescription medications. When certain medications can be used to treat multiple disorders, like Neurontin being used for epilepsy, migraine and fibromyalgia, it's pretty obvious that someone like an insurance company or potential employer could leap to an incorrect conclusion about someone who is using that medication. Not to mention the person who scans someone coming out of the drug store and decided to either mug him or rob his house for specific drugs that are wanted on the street. Big Brother seems to have arrived a little late, but he's worming his way into our medical bottles, slowly but surely. Do YOU want the feds (or anybody else except your doctor or an EMT team) to know what meds you are taking? I think not.
The ?intolerable? prices that Angell writes about are confined to the brand-name sector of the American drug marketplace. As the economists Patricia Danzon and Michael Furukawa recently pointed out in the journal Health Affairs, drugs still under patent protection are anywhere from twenty-five to forty per cent more expensive in the United States than in places like England, France, and Canada. Generic drugs are another story. Because there are so many companies in the United States that step in to make drugs once their patents expire, and because the price competition among those firms is so fierce, generic drugs here are among the cheapest in the world. And, according to Danzon and Furukawa?s analysis, when prescription drugs are converted to over-the-counter status no other country even comes close to having prices as low as the United States.
They also complain, rightly, about $500,000,000 advertising campaigns designed to lie to doctors and patients. This and other monkey shines, like lobbying for expensive equipment that gets around state laws, is the fault of drug companies and they deserve their criticism.
The problem is that drug companies that are run by patent jokers of the "shark fin" variety in your linked article. They are scummy enough to lie to their customers, and abuse the patent office. They now seem to be moving ahead to eliminate their cheaper competition by requiring expensive equipment supposedly aimed at stopping a non exitstent problem. This bill will suit them well by raising the costs overall and eliminating the threat of reimportation.
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While they aren't about to end the world, they are becoming an unsettling risk. For example, superbug salmonella is on the rise--resistant to 9 different antibiotics. And chicken in Spain is getting nasty, resistant to the antibiotic Vancomycin, a powerful drug used to clear out horrid infections.
So, while the general human population may not be harboring the superbugs right now they could commute from the animal population. Maybe instead of watching human resistance to viruses we should be keeping check on our domestic animals, since the superbugs may come from them.
A RFID chip on each bottle, would help to ensure that the right prescription gets filled because the actual contents of the batch (and batch number could be printed on the label of the bottle being sold. )
If you get close enough to a truck you should be able to deduce it's contents without touching it. Then organized crime could instantly tally up how much the drugs are worth (to Rush L.), and then decide weather or not to proceed with a heist.
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They might cost 30 to 50 cents a piece but the problem right now is 15 to 30% of the labels dont work for varies reasons http://www.worldlabel.com/rfid/rfid.htm Then you always have a problem of Hacking!! RFID labels being damaged, information being stolen. How they going to solve that?
Have you not noticed the trend? First, a technology is introduced that carries information. Second, people notice that the extra information is useful. Third, the technology is relentlessly expanded. Fourth, profit for tin-foil hat salespeople. We're at the first stage right now with this particular thing. But think... once RFID scanners have been purchased and tested in every grocery store pharmacy for major chains, it will be very tempting to start using that technology elsewhere. That's definitely going to happen, and the 'tin-foil hat crowd' is looking for ways to make sure that when it does, rights are not violated. This story is a notice of things to come, and thus very appropriate for a news site, especially a section of it concerning privacy rights.
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Great idea. Lets put RFID tags on prescription medication that people use to help them with paranoia. Aren't these people going to be the most paranoid about the RFID technology allowing the govt., space aliens, etc. to track them?
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It's more beaurocratic meddling.
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Chances are this may not be read since I'm replying quite late. But are they forcing the RFID labels, or will it be optional? Cause if it's forcing, it's nothing more than Big Goverment, Big Brother, controlling our lives for "our own good", which is a bad thing.
My dad invented a system for covertly labeling drugs in the 1960s. It involved maxing trace quanitities of amino acids in with the active ingredients. It was like the scheme for micro-tagging explosives, or, if you will, a chemical hash code based on the lot number.
It was very difficult getting the FDA to approve doing this. The FDA viewed these chemicals as adulterants, even though they appear in enormous quanitites in just about everything that humans eat each day.
It would seems someone in the US is very busy trying to sell the idea that RFID are more secure than printed number or codebar.
... In short, anyone who understand that information is power. When you gives power to someone, he tends to use it.
The thuth is: IT IS NOT. It can be safer if used properly, this is also true of other means.
The problem with RFID is that people who are pushing for it fail to point out the fact that the RFID's capacity to emit has to be stronger because the antennas used by the "readers" HAS to be cheap. It would be too expensive otherwise.
What a "proper reader" can get only by being within 3 or 4 feet, a good antenna can catch hundred of feet away. Like a car parked on the other side of the street...
The RFID information itself isn't the only one the listener get: He also knows WHEN and sometimes WHO is doing it.
For example: a thief park his car in front of a drugstore. At 11H35 500 RFID gives their number in a 2mm time span. Now he knows that the store just received its drug order. More, only a clerk is in there, so he knows that clerks have the safe's key. The thief doesn't even have to be in the car.
There is no real difference between the information contained in a RFID than in a codebare. The difference is when you read it: a RFID is like sreaming that information for anyone to know. Who wants to know? Stores, Governement agencies, criminals,
How annoying.
If they start putting it on customer bottles, how long before the postal system uses RFID scanners to gather information and sell the information? Couldn't this be considered a breach of privacy between the pharmacy and patient?
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I guess you also missed the part of the article that reminds us (again) "experts don't expect it to stop there." And the part where they are already making the argument "the cost is great but the need is great" etc.
Go ahead, mod this post down too. You fucking well know I'm right.
just exactly how much power do you think you can feed through one of those tags before they fry? the antennas of most insects are bigger than the ones on RFID tags.
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