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RFID Tags Can Interfere With Medical Devices

Posted by kdawson on from the mind-how-you-radiate dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A new study suggests RFID systems can cause 'potentially hazardous incidents in medical devices.' (Here is the JAMA study's abstract.) Among other things, electrical interference changed breathing machines' ventilation rates and caused syringe pumps to stop. Some hospitals have already begun using RFID tags to track a wide variety of medical devices, but the new finding suggests the systems may have unintended consequences."

2 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Hazardous by electricbern · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I dub thee harzardous technology of the week. You can now join the cellphone, TV, radio, power grid, Internet, and so on in the list of hazardous technology. Welcome on board.

    --
    alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls /dev > il && tail daemon.log'
  2. FUD and title errors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if you ignore this article's lack of specifics or detail (which makes it more or less FUD in my view), the title /. gave it is *flatly incorrect*. It's not the tags that are causing the interference; it is the reader/interrogator. These inexpensive passive UHF tags are just that, passive; it's the active (4W) signal that might be able to interfere.

    Yes, there are serious concerns with RFID, but there's no point spreading vague FUD. In medical applications, interference obviously a very serious matter. Several groups are working on this problem, so how about we wait until we have solid results before we make up our minds?