An Associated Press article shocked owners of cats and other pets. A series of highly authoritative research studies conducted over the last decade show that the same microchips used to track pets are the cause of fast-growing malignant cancers in 1% to 10% of laboratory animals tested. Now animal owners are faced with what to do.

Why do microchips cause cancer?

As Dr. Katherine Albrecht, a consumer educator and privacy advocate who helped research and publish this story, explains, what scientists think is happening is similar to a common splinter. When you get a splinter in your finger, your body goes to great lengths to get rid of it. The site turns red, swells, and tries to dislodge the foreign object.

However, when a microchip is embedded deep in the fatty tissue of your cat or other pet, their body is unable to remove the chip as a splinter. Instead, a swelling forms around the microchip. Scientists believe that these inflamed cells can become malignant and then metastasize and move around the body. The worst thing is that these tumors can grow quickly and be malignant.

What the research shows

Between 1996 and 2006, eight published veterinary and toxicology journals reported that lab mice and rats injected with microchips sometimes had a tendency to develop subcutaneous “sarcomas,” or malignant tumors around the implants. A brief summary of some of the main conclusions follows.

• A 1998 study in Ridgefield, Connecticut of 177 mice reported cancer incidence to be slightly greater than 10 percent. The researchers described the results as “surprising.”
• A 2006 study in France found tumors in 4.1 percent of 1,260 microchipped mice. This was one of six studies in which scientists did not set out to find microchip-induced cancer, but instead noted the results incidentally.
• In 1997, a study in Germany found cancers in 1 percent of 4,279 mice with chips. The tumors “are clearly due to implanted microchips,” the authors wrote.

What the researchers say

Researching the story, the Associated Press asked scientists to weigh in on the available research. Specialists at some preeminent cancer institutions said the findings raised red flags.

–“After reading this information, there is no way in the world that one of those chips will be implanted in my skin or in one of my family members,” said Dr. Robert Benezra, director of the Genetics Program of Cancer Biology. at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

–Dr. George Demetri, director of the Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, agreed. Although the tumor incidents were “reasonably small,” in his opinion, the investigation highlighted “certainly real risks” in RFID implants. In humans, sarcomas, which attack connective tissues, can range from highly curable to “tumors that are incredibly aggressive and can kill people in three to six months,” he said.

–At the Jackson Laboratory in Maine, a leader in mouse genetics research and the initiation of cancer, Dr. Oded Foreman, a forensic pathologist, also reviewed the studies at the AP’s request. He was initially skeptical, suggesting that the chemicals given to some of the studies might have caused the cancers and skewed the results. But he took a different view after seeing that control mice, which received no chemicals, also developed cancer. “That might be a small hint that something real is going on here,” he said.

–“The transponders were the cause of the tumors,” said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicological pathologist, explaining in a telephone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan.

What can cat owners do?

1. Check your cat or other microchipped pet regularly for swelling or lumps., especially around the injection site. If owners or vets find anything abnormal in that area or any other area (since the chips can migrate), an x-ray or biopsy should be done.
2. Dr. Albrecht also suggests that pet owners help her Volunteer to educate and network with animal advocacy and animal rights groups, as well as veterinary organizations. taking action on your website. Many of these animal-loving groups endorsed pet microchipping without having access to previous studies. Dr. Albrecht hopes that public pressure will also force Verichip Corporation, the manufacturer of the chip, to take responsibility or face a class action lawsuit.
3. Report any incidence of pets that have died of cancer. or animals that have been cured of cancer to Dr. Albrecht at AntiChips, especially if the tumor is known or suspected to be or was linked to a microchip. This will help further document the cancer test and stop microchipping.

Source: AntiChips.com; washingtonpost.com