There hasn’t been a whole lot of positive response for the RFID chip implant business, despite the industry’s clamoring for volunteers.

For a while there, VeriChip’s controversial implantable RFID (developed to improve the accuracy of surgery and other applications) dominated headlines.

But according to Mobile magazine and other media, VeriChip has sunk a lot of its own money into making these things – but people aren’t buying. Most of the company’s income still comes from chips that monitor patients but are embedded in a wristband.

Another article echoes these findings, reaching back 10 years to the first “implantable RFID” experiments, and the slow progress since. One of the reasons it’s not happening as much as VeriChip would like? One word: ethics.

Writes Mark David:

It’s a decade later and three years since the Food and Drug Administration approved VeriChip’s implantable chips for human beings. In fact, more than 250 hospitals and more than 1000 doctors have adopted VeriMed tags… But despite the FDA’s approval, the controversy remains, especially involving children. Beyond the philosophical and even theological concerns, many critics question whether chipping would really protect lost or kidnapped children.

What do you think?