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Medical Study Raises New RFID Fears

Written by Evan Schuman
June 27th, 2008

Although the question of RFID safety has been debated extensively over the years, with conflicting study results, a major new medical study released this week points to very specific electromagnetic dangers within nine inches of the transmitter.

The highly respected Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found 34 electromagnetic interference instances out of 123 tests, with 22 of them rated potentially hazardous. “Interference changed breathing machines’ ventilation rates and caused syringe pumps to stop” at a distance of about nine inches, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal. This may give serious pause to some retail IT operations, who can have dozens of RFID devices in loading docks and assembly lines, in addition to trucks and even on shelves.

Posted in IT Strategy/Industry, Mobile/Wireless/Contactless, RFID, Security/Fraud
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One Comment | Read Medical Study Raises New RFID Fears

  1. Giacomo Says:
    June 27th, 2008 at 10:56 am

    I look forward to studying these issues further, but this is feeling a lot like the cell phone “dangers” of 10 years ago.

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