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Essay about Human Microchip Implants

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As the complexity and convenience of technology increases, some of the new advancements such as microchip implant for humans and animals can be very controversial. At first, the implants may seem to have benefits but in the long run they will actually cause more trouble than they are worth. These potential "troublemakers" are about the size of an elongated grain of rice and are injected in the skin under the arm or hand (Feder, Zeller 15). The chip is not powered by battery and there is nothing that can possibly leak out into the body (Posada-Swafford 8). An early form of this technology was used to monitor salmon and has been used for other wildlife research (Verhovek 5). The idea of the chips was started from the September 11 tragedy …show more content…

Maybe the low cost has something to do with the steady rise in pet implants. Another contributing factor to the rise in chips is that many animal shelters around the country have the chips put in the animals when they are adopted (Verhovek 5). For example, the entire city of Los Angeles, which has one of the highest numbers of stray pets in the nation, requires that all stray pets found must have the microchip put in their shoulder (Lubell 13). The first animal shelter in the United States to have all their adopted animals implanted with the chips was the Marin Humane Society in Northern California (Verhovek 5). Contrary to common belief, the tags in the pets are not tracking devices like the ones put in wildlife. Instead, they have a code that when scanned through a computer brings up information about the pet, including who the owners are. However, years ago the scanner used to read the chips in pets could not read the chip if it was made by a different company (Lubell 13). Now, universal scanners have been implemented that read all different brands of chips. The chips in pets are not only used here in the United States, but also in many other countries around the globe. For example, any pet traveling to Britain and France must have a microchip" (Lubell 13). Because of the rising

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