‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine
Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has made DIY medicine cheaper and more accessible to the masses.
You wouldn't pirate a medicine, would you?
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I’m a process chemist. I do this sort of thing for a living.
These guys don’t even know why what they’re suggesting is so dangerous. Do not do any of this.
I'm a quality chemist. I test the API's that process chemists make to be sure they're right. Yeah, reactions don't always proceed as intended. These guys do understand the risks, and are only trying to provide an option. Here in the US the insurance companies are perfectly willing to let us die because funding expensive treatment hurts their bottom line. Unless you're independently wealthy, a small scale reactor at home may become the only option a person has available. Definitely risky, but why not take the chance when corporate America has determined you're not valuable enough to save?
Hey guys, many other countries have figured out that healthcare doesn't have to be a privatized, for-profit nightmare. Perhaps that's an option worth exploring.
Plenty have been fighting for it, but there's an uphill battle against "but that's socialism and socialism is evil!" and those that personally benefit financially who stand in the way.
Ironically most of these patented meds were developed with US funding, but somehow it isn't socialism when corporations benefit.
Oh, I agree it won't be easy, particularly when taking profits from rich people.
I've heard it likened to a house full of asbestos. Knock it all down and there's likely to be collateral damage, but meticulously taking it apart will take a considerable amount of time. I feel it would be easiest for governments to purchase the insurance companies, then slowly amalgamate so it's all one network open to everyone.
Also it's a bit entertaining when someone opposes it because "it's socialism". It's already socialism, you just have middlemen skimming profit off the top while providing little value.
You're ignoring the fact that it's nearly impossible to implement this right now. Big pharma and numerous politicians want to keep the status quo for as long as possible. By the time we have more affordable medicine, numerous people would have suffered greatly or died because they couldn't access the medicine they need. Having solutions that don't require an entire rework of the healthcare industry is necessary so that we can save as many lives as possible.
Oh yes, your pay-to-win government duopoly isn't helping anything, but don't call it impossible. The Affordable Care Act was a start, and I don't doubt the right people could make universal healthcare access a real thing in the US.
Isn't medical tourism a thing in the US too; like you can fly to a developing country, get your treatment done by top specialists there and fly back to US and the cost would still be lower than what it would have taken to do in home country.
It has been popular. People were traveling out of country for joint replacements. Costs were less for travel, surgery, and recovery than what they would pay for it here. Covid put a damper on travel for a couple years, so not sure if it's still as popular. I would consider it if/when I need knee replacements done. Considering what I've heard about the quality issues of joint replacements in the US, I don't want one here.
You can fly to a developed country and still get treatment cheaper.
Oh yeah that should be cheap considering Cuba is right around the corner, for example.
Haha, what?!? That's crazy talk!
It's not even funding the expensive treatments, it's not charging a 1000x markup hurting their bottom line. It'd be one thing if it were genuinely expensive medicine (i would still propose a distribution method other than "capitalism") but it's not.
If these meds were available for a reasonable price i don't think we'd be seeing groups like this.
Quite frankly, the contamination from pesticide and polluted air, water and dirt on everyday foods (and of course my herbs) are a bigger concern. They're ubiquitous and unavoidable, now, thanks to big business and apathetic, time-constrained, overworked individuals. So I'm not that concerned by home remedies, although I really only trust my own. Some herbalists/root medics add turpentine to their remedies, for internal use. So I'll stick to my own or vetted suppliers.
I’m not disputing the reasoning behind why this is important. But “it is important” does not imply that their solution is the right one.
There really should be better options, but it's where this country is currently at, where some home chemistry is something people would have to consider. You're right, it's dangerous and certainly has a lot of risks. With some background in it myself and access to resources that the general public doesn't have, I would still be hesitant to try something I'd cooked up in the basement at home. But, I'm also not at the point where I'm going to die from a treatable but unaffordable disease.
There is exactly one easiest option: be like the rest of the civilized world and ban consumer marketing of medicine. HUGE amounts of the prices of drugs are just down to TV ads. “Ask your doctor about…” is horse shit, let your doctor decide what prescription drugs you need. And fire the cocaine-riddled, law-breaking marketing departments that soak up so much money.
But the right solution is inconstitutional and anti-corporate! Even socialist and maybe even "woke"! So, this is the option TPTB are leaving us with.
Don't like it? The second most useful thing to do compared to this is to ready your guillotine. That is the language they understand.
No, just follow the money. It’s all going into marketing. Ban marketing (like the rest of the world!) and prices drop overnight.
The "right one" would be open access by governments. But that's socialism, and bad for reasons ($$$$).
People make illicit drugs chock full of impurities all the time too, and it fucks people up.
There are standards for purity on pharmaceuticals. Impurities have to be ridiculously low. Lower than you can measure in your garage.
These dudes either don’t know you need to even measure purity or have decided that it’s inconvenient and are ignoring it.
Or, and hear me out, they know what the risks are and have assessed that they are reasonable when the alternative is death? I do disagree with them asserting they are higher-quality though, or I would at least like to see incontrovertible proof of that.
“Our recipes are consistent, like a good espresso maker.”
“Okay cool, how do you know that?”
“So many questions! We’re hackers! We are very smart.”
Cool. Yep. You aren't wrong mate.
So I'm guessing you believe people should choose death instead, right? Or you're going to pay for all these people's medications?
If Health won't make piracy legal, it's hard to believe anything else will.
That’s a false dichotomy if I’ve ever heard one, dude.
Did you read the article, the part where the author's close friend died from a treatable illness? What other alternatives do you suggest?
Yeah that was my first thought too. While I kind of get the spirit of it, in practice this is so absurdly dangerous IMO. Even if someone has the best possible intentions, there are so many things that could go wrong with this, especially if you include things like long-term effects that aren't immediately apparent, or interactions with other drugs, especially if you're taking other home-made pills with potentially unknown ingredients. While it can be frustrating to hear about a promising new medicine that won't be available for years, there's a reason why they spend so long testing these things.
IMO the better (but much more difficult) solution is reforming the medical industry so that it's easier for people to see a doctor and actually afford to get medicine. I'm not usually a fan of big government stuff, but medicine is one of those things that just needs to be kept under supervision I think.
As someone with a chemistry background I'm surprised you think the industry even takes half these precautions for our current drugs.
Not even talking about 'state of the art' meds here were talking the plastics from cars that've been around since the 60's is under studied (but hey its sponsored by oil money so its 'safer')
The global medical community had to beg the US to ban lead from consumer products like paint and gasoline for close to 80 years and our politicians kept taking bribes from lobbyists to ignore medical science.... But did we learn from that and ban lobbying? Nope, lobbyists are now bribing politicians to ignore the plastic epidemic and global warming
I think these guys might be able to hack through the process and get stuff done and think getting other people to follow them will be trivial as well. But just because they didn't mess up, doesn't mean other people won't. A large majority might end up hurting themselves if they follow in their route.
I mean if you're going to die without access, roll the dice.
Or if your access would be bullshit constrained.
Endocrinologists fuck up hormone dosages on a regular enough basis that transfems will buy the estrogen powder, convert to injectable solution, and do it themselves.
Okay and that happens with OTC medications, too. I have a family member who's solution to everything is a *pill. Always taken in half or double, triple, quadruple dosages. Older and runs to the doctor for a sneeze too.
You can lead a jackass to water, but you can neither make them drink nor prevent them from drowning. Or in this instance, giving themselves hyponatremia.
Edited for reasons
That’s the thing. They have no way of even knowing if they messed up! I’m not even sure the way they could be messing up is a thing they know they should be worried about.
I'm a dumbass. I don't do this sort of thing for a living. Do you think it will ever be as safe as properly manufactured and prescribed drugs?
No. Never. It takes whole teams of people to get it right. (Even then, they sometimes get it wrong.)