Slashdot Mirror
RFID Tags Can Interfere With Medical Devices
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."
The radio frequency identification, or RFID, is an inherently flawed idea. It is a technological solution to a social problem that it created. It is a threat to our security, our privacy, our freedom, and now also our health! And this is not a just conspiracy theory. Some of the most respectable members of our society are protesting against RFID technology, including Bruce Schneier and even Richard Stallman. My only question is, how much more insult to our intelligence can we take as a society before we start actively protesting? Our freedom, our privacy, our health and our dignity is being taken from us and all we can do is complain on the Internet? Where are the protesting groups? Where are the outraged people desperate to change the situation? Where are the angry mobs? What else are we going to let them take away from us before we stop talking and start acting?
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Interesting -- Slashdot has talked about this kind of thing before and I remember responding:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234315&cid=19078365
Every time I read something like this I get a bit frustrated. I can't paste the whole article for copyright reasons, but I am hoping a kind AC will. Either way, the gist of the article is that when very close (some have interference "distances" of 0.1 cm) RFID active readers / transmitters may interfere with some medical equipment.
The interobserver variability in the study was high, and they defined an event very broadly, essentially as any change in the operation of a device. It is a bit aggressive -- and I fear that good technology may inadvertently be stifled for "interference" concerns...
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
..that people with these devices don't receive any mail via snail.
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
Interestingly enough, I've been approached 3 times now by people in the health care industry who have expressed a need for some time of asset tracking software and I've always given them my brother's card (his company specializes in RFID based asset tracking). Actually, one person specifically asked me if I was capable of integrating an RFID solution into their environment. I wonder how many companies are currently developing RFID based software geared towards the health care industry only to receive a backlash from the medical community when this type of information becomes common knowledge..
Procrastinators, Unite Tomorrow!!
Lets take these points one by one. First, it is not a flawed idea, it is a flawed implementation. All privacy concerns can be easily mitigated, with or without cooperation from RFID manufacturers. Pop your undies in the microwave for ten seconds and they won't be reporting back to the mothership, don't worry. Second, they are a technological solution to a physical, not social problem: inventory tracking. The fact that they are being used in other ways does not change the fact that this is what they were invented for, and they do a good job keeping costs down and efficiency up.
Bruce was complaining about their use in passports. So, screen the passports so they can't be read unless opened. Besides the passport issue, here is Stallman's fear:
Progress in gel batteries could result in RFIDs readable from 300 feet. If one of them is inserted in something you carry, you could be scanned from a block away! Total monitoring of everyone's movements could be a reality. Gosh, that could never happen with any other kind of technology, oh wait, spies have been doing that for years, and tracking people over a much longer distance. How would protesting RFID change that, exactly? There are much, much scarier things to protest against than RFID tags, get some perspective please.- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Thanks for adding some sensible information to the discussion. Slashdot editors seem not to be able to know the difference between science and foolish imaginings.
Here is a quote, a comment to the Wall Street Journal story:
"interference changed breathing machines' ventilation rates and caused syringe pumps to stop."
These things are FCC regulated. Should I feel safe knowing that not only are some of the systems in a hospital sensitive to EMF below FCC limits, but also that several life-critical devices FAIL under such radiation levels? For example, WHY should a syringe pump be designed so fragile that some radio waves can cause it to utterly stop?
Comment by RH - June 24, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Exactly. That's what I would have said. Here's another comment (my emphasis):
The usual ignorant hysteria. First of all, the test was of the reader, not the tags. "The median distance between the RFID reader and the medical device in all EMI incidents was 30 cm (range, 0.1-600 cm)." Second, and not available in the abstract is the AE classification. OBTW, Berwick is a shill for the trial lawyers, not a serious person.
Comment by jon - June 24, 2008 at 6:06 pm
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?
Why are these medical devices having problems like that? I thought medical devices were SUPPOSED to be hardened against bad things and fail over nicely.
I guess not.
The interference came from the readers not the tags. The tags are passive.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The field drops off at a square of distance, so a RFID reader at 10cm will have one hundredth the EM field of a reader at 1cm.
A huge % of medical deaths are due to human error (wrong drugs/dosage etc)and the correct use of RFID can go a long way to mitigate that. Clearly that would be offset if the RFID equipment was to interfere with equipment.
Medical devices should be designed to be highly robust to EM interference, but the flip side to that is that often the sensors need to be very sensitive to detect slight electrical signals in the body (pulse, brain activity etc). Still, it should be possible to design equipment that is not degraded by RFID readers.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The machines that suffered dangerous faults should be recalled and repaired. Keeping them away from RFID readers and other sources of rf will not suffice. The fact that rf interference could cause dangerous faults means that they contain design defects such that component failures or other sorts of damage or interference could also cause dangerous faults.
And yes, I have designed medical life support equipment, though not in this century.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
In the coming years most of the containers for drugs could have RFID tags. California is pushing through a new law (E-Pedigree Law http://www.pharmacy.ca.gov/about/e_pedigree_laws.shtml) that creates a chain of custody for any drug. RFID has been one of the recommended technologies to help manufactures and everyone else in the supply-chain to deal with this law.
Having boxes with hundreds of RFID tags rolling down the hallways of a hospital doesn't seem so safe now!
If the devices carry a CE mark(which would be required to sell in the EU), they had EMC testing done on them.
The basic EMC standard for medical devices is EN 60601-1-2. For radiated interference, it requires testing from 80 to 2500 MHz - 3 V/m for non-lifesupporting equipment and 10 V/m for lifesupporting equipment. This is a 1 kHz AM modulated signal.
There are further requirements for implantable devices and some other life supporting equipment. EN 45502 has magnetic field requirements, and AAMI PC69 covers cell phone frequencies with a pulsed test.
There is at present no requirement to test at the specific frequencies that may be used for RFID and the like, and no requirement to use a modulation similar to what they employ.