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An industry watchdog website, www.SpyChips.com, has brought up for debate Thompson's position on the board of VeriChip Corporation, which is a main manufacturer of RFID chips, and his stock options in the company, saying those could combine to make Thompson a dangerous candidate due to the clear conflict of interest at play.

The FDA approved the VeriChip as a medical device under Thompson as head of U.S. Health and Human Services, who left his cabinet position to join the board of directors for VeriChip, and began promoting the company's glass-encapsulated RFID tags. The VeriChip glass-covered RFID tags are injected into humans to uniquely number and identify them.

Thompson has previously said that Americans should have the RFID tags implanted into their bodies to make electronic access to medical records swift and efficient. "It's very beneficial and it's going to be extremely helpful and it's a giant step forward to getting what we call an electronic medical record for all Americans," said Thompson to CBS MarketWatch back in July 2005. Thompson went on to suggest that military personnel should have RFID tags as well to replace dog tags.

]The media in his home state of Wisconsin seem to have confirmed that Thompson is laying the groundwork for a 2008 presidential bid. Thompson was recently quoted as saying "There's no question I'm interested."

The stock options Thompson has in VeriChip are today not worth much, and Thompson is considered a long shot for the Republican nomination, but his influence should not be taken lightly, according to SpyChips.com, which recently posted "Despite his folksy manner, he's a savvy politician whose Washington connections run deep, and he's got a vested interest in chipping America."

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Related Articles: • RFID - It May Be Inescapable, but Should It Be Implantable? • IBM's new RFID "clipped tag" aims to assuage consumer privacy fears • Security breakdown: E-passport chip easily hacked, cloned	Take Action: Support CounterThink.com Email this article to a friend Share this article on: NewsVine | digg | del.icio.us Permalink to this article: http://www.CounterThink.com/021128.html Reprinting this article: Non-commercial OK, cite CounterThink.com with clickable link. Embed article link: (copy HTML code below): <a href = "http://www.CounterThink.com/021128.html">Would a Tommy Thompson presidency mandate microchipping Americans?</a>