News in Brief Health & Medicine

Pills equipped with tiny needles can inject a body from the inside

The ingestible devices administer medicine and then pass out through the digestive tract

Swallowable medical devices

INGESTION OVER INJECTION  Swallowable medical devices, each about the size of a pea, could give painless injections inside the stomach.

Felice Frankel

By Maria Temming

For those of us who cringe at the sight of needles, there may someday be a less daunting alternative to getting a shot: swallowing a pill-sized device that delivers medication by painlessly pricking the inside of the stomach.