Squashing a Bug

The year 2000 glitch, or millennium bug, is known to most people who’ve been awake during the past year. They’ve heard about the early computer programmers who saved precious space by denoting years in two digits instead of four. And about the possibility that these technological fossils, still in use around the world, might, for example, hold up a pension check because the computer decides that the recipient hasn’t been born yet when it reads year 00 as 1900.

Another worry is the embedded microchip of the type employed by just about every modern electronic device. Microchips are found in household appliances, in automobiles and on up the critical slope to water and sewage systems, power plants, military weapons, manufacturing plants and various biomedical devices used to sustain or improve health or help provide diagnoses.

It is important to avoid panic by separating fact from sick invention. The heart pacemaker rumor, for example, has become the stuff of urban legend. But pacemakers and many other important pieces of medical equipment do not have date-sensitive chips. And most appliances and machines that contain embedded chips function on much shorter operation spans, like hours or days or months, leaving them immune to the so-called Y2K malady. Nonetheless there is some threat regarding embedded chips. Manufacturers face the greatest challenges--imagine a plant whose machines just shut down, and the consequences to customers.

One of the worst barriers to arise so far is that few makers of biomedical devices such as laboratory testing equipment have been willing to share potential Y2K problems with the public for fear of legal liability. Fortunately that is changing. Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Year 2000 Information Readiness and Disclosure Act, which encourages all companies, especially biomedical manufacturers, to come forward with problems. As a spur to involvement, the government has posted on the Internet the names of companies that haven’t cooperated.

Now, physicians, health care facilities and others can gain more information by visiting the federal Web sites that list manufacturers and the Y2K status of their biomedical products: www.fda.gov/cdrh/yr2000/y2kintro.html and www.y2k.gov.

The other half of the year 2000 problem, embedded chips, deserves the same attention that’s currently extended to mainframe and desktop computer systems around the world.