The US rejected Elon Musk’s bid to test Brain Chips on Humans that could reportedly cure blindness and paralysis
According to reports, the US government rejected plans for Elon Musk’s Neuralink company to test Brain chips on humans to ‘help the blind see’, citing serious safety concerns.
Musk announced that Neuralink, his BCI company would begin human trials in November.
He shared a video showing the BCI, or brain-computer interfacing that Neuralink was developing. A nine-year-old monkey named Pager was shown learning to play Pong using a joystick with a Neuralink Chip inserted into his brain.
After learning the patterns, the joystick became disconnected. The monkey’s brainwaves connected to the game and he could play it.
This video received a lot of media attention, with tech pundits saying that it would revolutionize medicine and change the way humans interact with computers.
According to a new Reuters report, Musk’s Neuralink implants won’t be as widely available and widely adopted as Musk would have wanted them to be as US regulators rejected Musk’s bid to test brain chips on humans, citing safety risks.
According to the report, Elon Musk had predicted that Neuralink would soon start human testing for a brain implant that could cure chronic diseases such as blindness and paralysis, despite it being rejected by US healthcare agencies.
The rejection of Neuralink by the US Food and Drug Administration was not known to the media.
According to Reuters, Musk, and Neuralink have to resolve a number of issues before they can start human testing. This is a crucial milestone in the journey to final product clearance.
The FDA’s main safety concerns included the device’s lithium battery, the possibility of the implant’s microscopic cables migrating to other regions of the brain, and whether and how the device could be removed without harming brain tissue. Musk was denied as recently as November 2022.
During the hour-long demonstration in November, Musk stated that the company had filed “most of our papers” to the FDA, without naming any formal application. Right after the presentation Neuralink executives falsely claimed that the FDA asked them a few questions on safety, in what they said was an ongoing and open discussion.
Musk had announced that by November 30 this year, Neuralink would get FDA approval and clearance on human trials, if the FDA grants them the required permissions to do so.
Neuralink is still working through the FDA’s concerns almost a year after they were denied human trials the report added. Three employees expressed skepticism that the business could swiftly resolve the problems, especially given the deadline.
