A Year Into the Safety Review, Augmented Workers Wait Without an Answer

The safety review of Somaform Augmetics' neural-interface line remains open and contested, and for the roughly five percent of humans now living with an augmentation, that unresolved status has become its own condition. In a Jakarta clinic that fits and maintains implants, technician Dewi Sasongko described patients who booked follow-ups this autumn only to be told the review had neither cleared the line nor pulled it. "They ask me one question," she said. "Is it safe. I am not allowed to say yes and I have no reason to say no." Regulators have neither concluded nor closed the review, and Somaform's founder Julian Morrow continues to argue the interface meets every standard on the books. Advocates for augmented workers counter that "ongoing" is not a diagnosis anyone can live on indefinitely. The number that frames it all — one augmented human in twenty, and rising — is precisely why the review moves slowly. Getting it wrong touches too many people to rush.