‘Remote control’ contraceptive chip available ‘by 2018’ | Hacker News Reader

‘Remote control’ contraceptive chip available ‘by 2018’

bbc.com

51 pointsmisiti378049 comments

I'm holding out for Vasalgel. It was featured a while back in Wired and I've been following it since: http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-home/

That being said, I'm glad more options are being explored.

That's what I'm looking forward to. Being able to have more control over contraception without using condoms is great (I'm in a long term relationship with my very loving girlfriend, but we still worry at times) IMO.

What I'm interested in is whether this implantable chip will take off, considering that IIRC oral contraceptives are still used far more than other types (like the injections or the implant) despite being less effective?

You know, condoms aren't solely used as a contraceptive, there's thing called...HIV, you may have heard of it. Not to mention various other STDs.

Yes, I do know that which is why I qualified my own personal situation.

Depends on your definition of "effective". Oral contraceptives can be forgotten, but implants have more side-effects and a fairly catastrophic failure mode (the implant is done improperly -> proceeds to do nothing).

This is apparently a month-old announcement, and is available from many sources that don't inject quite so much editorial bias.

"What are your thoughts on this implantable chip? Does it raise concern? Do you think that this technology is a positive innovation? Do you think there could possibly be some ulterior intentions behind the production of this technology?"

Indeed, much better off going elsewhere to read about this.

This is pretty awesome. But do I wonder if something like this will be implanted by default at some point in human history and only removed when certain specifications are met.

I don't know if that would be bad or good. Looking around the world I'm not sure I feel it would be all bad. But yes.. abuse potential and _who decides... I know....

We have a millenia of past attempts to draw from to help you decide whether that would be good or bad.

What problems would this solve?

Efficiency. It's eventually selected for.

Implanting at birth, activating at a suitable marker point after puberty (a sensor which monitors normal progesterone levels would actually be fine for this) and de-activated when a women wants to conceive.

It'd be the most important bit of social policy in human history, seeing as how reproductive control and economic outcomes for women are very closely linked.

Something like this applied en masse in developing nations would also directly save a lot of lives.

<puts the tinfoil hat on> And then you need to get a deactivation code from the government to disable the implant to conceive. So the government gets the power to decide who can have children. This concept sounds very enticing and I think it would actually be a good idea,if not for the fact that I don't think anyone should hold that power over other people, even if it's in best intentions.

I see you've left out the implicit anti-tamper device that explodes and kills you. Obviously we'd just put that in.

The remote control bit worries me. Anything that can be wirelessly controlled can have a weakness that can be exploited at worst or monitored at best. It's not infeasible to have detectors to monitor emanations yielding a whole new swath of privacy issues. No one else needs to know what type of medication you're on.

That's what got me too. No matter what kind of encryption used, if someone records a person turning it off once, it can use that signal to turn off anytime he wants possibly sabotaging the whole thing. But it's not a problem with this product, it's just a general cryptography problem. Even military drones have it.

That's a drastic assumption to make. Replay attacks[1] are a well known problem, and countermeasures can be implemented relatively simply. To say that they would work "no matter what kind of encryption is used" is completely false FUD. I'd worry more about general incompetence.

[1]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack

there are a lot of things one would like to control from his/her Android. For example specific neurotransmitter level (right now it is done by drugs (legal and illegal)) by remotely commanding the chip to increase release or to stop releasing it. Reminds about Mr Data turning his emotions chip off.

We joke about intravenous coffee, but I'd actually kind of like a chip that gave me a little caffeine injection 20 minutes before my alarm went off in the morning.

I can see potential of this in the military. Soldiers could be trained Pavlov dog style to do anything with a push of a button. Also could make them feel calmer during operations. There would be real benefits I think. Wonder if DARPA is secretly funding this, because open funding would rise ethical people concern.

Rather than releasing hormones into the entire bloodstream, isn't it possible to implant this closer to the reproductive system so that it can affect ovulation more directly? With the right sensors, it might even be possible to detect the ovulation event and activate only during that time period?

Given our track record with securing other implanted technology like pacemakers and insulin pumps, the thought of this is pretty terrifying. What happens when someone hacks your chip and tells it to release the entire dosage at once?

Depends how much impact does that pill have.

I'm not sure it is worse than hacked pacemakers - death by hacking is not something a person wearing a pacemaker will want to worry about.

Regardless of the security, pacemakers and insulin pumps have led to an enormous quality of life improvement for an enormous number of people so that is perhaps not the comparison you want to making for the affect you want to effect.

> pacemakers and insulin pumps have led to an enormous quality of life

Are you comparing the quality-of-life boost that pacemakers and insulin pumps give you to something like contraception? Maybe I'm just misinformed, but contraceptives can even come in pill form nowadays. How does going from "taking a pill" => "implanted pump" even compare (especially since the other two are about life-threatening issues)?

what happens if the implant sustains physical damage due to injury, etc? then a 16-year supply of contraceptive gets administered in a single dose? pretty scary.

hopefully there's some form of neutralizer that can be triggered voluntarily and automatically if damage is sustained. one of those things that's gotta be failsafe. otherwise a trip to the ER for extraction?

it's all nice until the protective seal bursts in someone, releasing "10 decades of a hormone" at once

[edit] I've removed my comment as I'm not sure just how to express what I want to say.

There is not a single good argument to not tell them.

Altering someone's hormones so severely without their knowledge and consent is abuse plain and simple.

I'm not sure that the parent poster was being serious, but I imagine the view is that if you give such a thing to a teen, that they may feel it reduces the risks associated with sex enough that they will be willing to have loads of unprotected sex. I could argue that this is true to some extent[1], but probably no more so than with current contraceptives.

[1] Apparently things like oral sex and anal sex are infinitely more popular nowadays because they are seen as ways to have sex without getting pregnant (even though it doesn't reduce the STD risk).

I wish more countries had protection for reproductive rights like South African's Bill of Rights: http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons2.htm#12

You're going to have trouble getting someone to perform voluntary surgery on someone 13+ without their informed consent.

It's possibly criminal for a doctor to fail to mention a relevant previous surgery in their chart when discussing health issues with a patient, so they're going to find out through a healthcare provider anyway.

I'm mildly disturbed you think there are reasons to implant things in your kids and not tell them about it.

Moreover its the same ridiculous thinking which leads to people not giving girl's the HPV vaccine.

It's like DRM for your vagina!

"Creates" is not normally used in the future tense.

Blog spam, original article: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28193720

Thanks. Changed to that from http://earthweareone.com/bill-gates-foundation-announces-imp....

Might seem pedantic but its the 'Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation', not the Bill Gates

Am I the only one that thinks this is evil and scary?

I do hope governments rule against this kind of technology as extremely prone to the abuse of human rights. If you think arranged marriages are bad, what about 100% out-of-your-hands, in-your-parents 'arranged fertility'?

I'm not sure the freedom to reproduce as much as one wants under all circumstances is an inalienable human right. Others might feel differently.

>an inalienable human right

does such thing exists at all?

In biological reality... probably not. But in theory, yes.

For instance, the UN declaration of human rights.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

It's interesting that this document states the ADULT individuals who are MARRIED have the right to found a family. So not even the UN believes people have a universal right to procreation at any age or under any circumstances.

My personal feelings are mixed. I'm not a fan of traditional marriage. It appears broken in the west at least. But, I think the initial idea, the one upheld in this document and in traditional civilization is valid. When people are in a position to support and care for children, yes, I believe they have a right to have them. Otherwise they do the children and society in general no favors by having them.

How many children should people be allowed to have? Should we have people like the Duggers taking fertility drugs to have 20 kids? What if a lot of people decided to do this? What if cloning became easy? What if someone decided to lab produce 10,000 children using sperm and eggs from a select group of doners? Do they have this right? The issue is complex and I don't know the answers. But I do see a lot of problems that result from wanton reproduction.

I don't want to dismiss such a concern out of hand, but if a government has decided to take away the right to determine ones own fertility, this is the best option. An individual can break into their own implant and digitally flip the switch - which seems better than alternatives.

Errr... you know this isn't exactly a theoretical question, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

That certainly doesn't weaken your question. It just sort of sounds like you don't realize our ancestors already took a pretty good crack at answering it...

Government attempts to affect individual fertility are nothing new. The most significant cases are India's sterilization prpgram of the 1970s and China's one child policy. On the other side countries like Japan today want to increase fertility. Notice that a lot of these programs are about creating social incentives/disincentives as much as about technology.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

The United States government practiced involuntary sterilization of Native American women until 1976.

It's definitely not unprecedented, even in this country.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/543.html

An implant under the skin in your arm is likely to be easier to remove than an IUD.

There are wonderful alternatives to pharmaceutical contraception, barrier methods and surgical sterilization, not to mention chemical and surgical abortion.

I would invite readers here to learn about modern NFP and to help spread the word:

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/n...

EDIT: expanded my "alternatives to" list per the observation of another reader. Thanks, jjoonathan!

Alternative? Yes. Wonderful? Only if you stigmatize the sexual behaviors incompatible with NFP, conveniently making it impossible to complain about.

EDIT: You also forgot to mention condoms which don't alter the natural functioning of your body, allow for a wider range of sexual expression, and serve as a stronger barrier against STD transmission than NFP. What was your complaint against condoms again?

> Marriage is a gift from God

Oh, right.

Well, there are other good websites from which to learn about modern NFP. For example:

http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org/

Just skip the USCCB's writeup if it's not your cup of tea.

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