VICTORIA — Tiny radio-frequency ID chips embedded in syringes could make life safer for cleanup workers who daily scour the nation’s streets looking for discarded needles.
The tag, which could be attached to a 20-cent syringe for an extra five cents, is similar to a grocery bar code. People collecting needles or city parks crews would carry an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) reader that starts beeping about a metre away from a needle, said student Mustafa Ahmed, part of a team of University of Victoria MBA students that came up with the idea.
The team hopes the idea will be picked up by needle-distribution organizations.
“We started to notice a lot of used needles in Victoria just lying around,” said Ahmed.
“It’s a huge problem, especially when you have little kids and other people being exposed in places like parks and baseball fields.”
The cost would be a fraction of the expense of treating people with accidental needle jabs and would eliminate the huge worry about potential infection, Ahmed said.
The next steps are feasibility and business plans and getting information about RFID-equipped syringes to decision-makers, he said.
“The manufacturing part is quite easy, but it needs some strong backup. It is something which would have to have government support.”
The NeedleSight project won the people’s choice award in the university’s information technology trade show earlier this year. The task set for MBA teams was to come up with an idea using technology in an innovative way for the greater good of the community.
David Speed, City of Victoria assistant director of parks, said about four staff have received needle punctures over the last 12 years and, although none have become infected, it is a concern.
The RFID tag would be useful, as long as the reader was small enough to fit in something like a gardening glove, Speed said.
“It would have to be part of the regular safety gear that people use on a regular basis.”
However, RFID syringes raise questions about the privacy of needle users, says Andrea Langlois of AIDS Vancouver Island.
Confidentiality is key when people obtain needles, she said.
“Users might not take our needles because someone might be able to track where they are dealing and using. I would have concerns about that,” she said.
Harm-reduction specialist Dr. Jane Buxton of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, which distributes syringes to various organizations, said given the millions of needles that are distributed each year, the focus should be on 100 per cent safe disposal, rather than radio frequency chips.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Technolo...199/story.html 
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