- Shares of Applied Digital Solutions Inc. fell 29 percent
on Friday -- the same day doctors implanted its microchips into four patients
in what the company hopes will be a new way to provide essential medical
information to doctors and rescuers.
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- The company's stock closed at $1.62, down 67 cents, or
29 percent, on volume more than twice the daily average.
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- The drop came after millions of Today Show viewers watched
one of the "chipping" procedures live from a doctor's office
in Boca Raton. Dozens of reporters and photographers from this country
and overseas converged there for the morning's media blitz.
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- All went smoothly for the Jacobs family from west of
Boca Raton. Jeffrey, 48, Leslie, 46, and their computer whiz-kid son, Derek,
14, barely blinked when surgeon David Wulkan made tiny incisions in their
upper arms and injected VeriChips the size of a grain of rice.
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- "I was amazed at how simple and easy it was,"
Derek told NBC's Katie Couric, who interviewed him on camera from New York.
He said the medical information is stored in a database that can be checked
by a doctor or paramedic after scanning the chip for an access code.
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- "This will help save lives," Leslie Jacobs
said, noting that her husband, who has fought cancer, has far more medical
information than would fit on a MedicAlert bracelet.
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- "There were times that he was in so much pain that
he couldn't talk when we brought him to the emergency room," she said.
"By scanning the chip, doctors could get his medical history and know
how to proceed."
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- She said she was so impressed with the potential for
the VeriChip that she had bought shares of Applied Digital. She did not
elaborate.
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- While company officials talked glowingly on Friday about
the future of the project, they said they had not reached agreement with
any hospital or emergency care provider to use the scanners. They are being
offered free in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
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- During the second of three briefings on Friday after
the Jacobs family was "chipped," Applied Digital's chief technology
officer, Keith Bolton, told reporters: "We have talked to 14 hospitals
in Palm Beach County, and most of them have agreed to take a scanner."
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- Later, when asked about those agreements, company President
Scott Silverman said, "It is the understanding of the management team
that the people we met with verbally agreed to put scanners in their hospitals."
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- A spokeswoman for Boca Raton Community Hospital said
she was not aware of any verbal agreement. A spokesman for Tenet Healthcare
Inc., which owns five hospitals in the county, said he was not aware of
contact by company representatives.
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- Getting hospitals and rescuers onboard is crucial for
Applied Digital, which lost $216 million in 2001 and has an $87.3 million
obligation to IBM Credit at a 17 percent interest rate.
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- During that losing year, company Chief Executive Officer
Richard J. Sullivan made a $450,000 salary and a $449,000 bonus. He also
holds 10,675,000 options with an exercise price of 15 cents, according
to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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- Glenn Singer can be reached at gsinger@sun-sentinel.com
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