Big Brother Medicine?: In the Age of National Healthcare, Do you Really Want to Swallow a Microchip in a Smart Pill?

Novartis AG is seeking FDA approval for the "smart pill." The smart pill is a drug that actually contains a microchip, and while its original intentions sound good, it does open up much controversy.

The first smart pill will include a small microchip that will help organ transplant patients successfully accept their new organ. Many of these patients face organ rejection.

"We are taking forward this transplant drug with a chip and we hope within the next 18 months to have something that we will be able to submit to the regulators, at least in Europe," Mundel told the Reuters Health Summit in New York.

"I see the promise as going much beyond that," he added.

But what are we really talking here? Are we talking about something that will always be used for good? Or, as we move closer to a national healthcare system where more freedoms are going to be at risk as the government tries to regulate your behavior to keep costs down, could it be used as a reporting tool for the national database that is part of the Obamacare healthcare plan? Take the blue pill and the government can track how much you exercise, the fatty foods you eat, the sugary foods you eat, etc.

Then when you need care, could they reject your treatment based on the data collected by the new microchip you swallowed? Would you even know you swallowed a microchip? You see the can of worms this opens?