Wireless Control of Dick Cheney’s Implantable Defibrillator Turned Off To Prevent Homeland-Style Assassination

On Homeland, Nick Brody helped kill the Vice President in a plot involving taking remote control of his pacemaker. This led to a number of articles, such as here, explaining that this really could be done. In an interview on Sixty Minutes, we found that Dick Cherney’s cardiologist had anticipated this risk five years earlier:

Before he had a heart transplant 20 months ago, Cheney was a seriously ill man who had undergone several life-saving procedures, including the implantation of a defibrillator. Cheney had that replaced in 2007 and his doctor, cardiologist Jonathan Reiner, with whom he wrote the book, had the device’s wireless function disabled so a terrorist couldn’t send his heart a fatal shock. Some years later, Cheney was watching an episode of the SHOWTIME hit “Homeland,” in which that terrorist scenario was woven into the plot. “I was aware of the danger…that existed…I found it credible,” he responds to Gupta when asked what went through his mind. “I know from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device, that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible,” says Cheney.

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