Hazards: ID Tags Interfering With Medical Care

Researchers writing in The Journal of the American Medical Association said they looked at the effect the tags had on 41 different medical devices. In 123 tests, they said, they were able to produce 34 incidents of electromagnetic interference.

Twenty-two of the incidents were described as hazardous and involved problems like a syringe pump stopping or an external pacemaker not working correctly. Others were less serious, the researchers said, but could still prove a distraction to medical workers.