6mo ago

bioterroism rule(s)

~~pharmacists solely being distributors of pre-ordained medication has no detrimental effects on humans. 🫠 the US is great to its people, and has very good healthcare practices!!~~ (livestream is on the 27th and i am excite, but not involved at all)

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2024/fahrplan/talk/ASBXWW/

stream link for those interested:

https://streaming.media.ccc.de/38c3

EDIT: my lack of capitalization and poor word choice has confused people. this event is about making legal, tested for efficacy medication only. pharmacists are good. doctors are good. the cost of medication and other hurdles that prevent people from having access to medication are not.

EDIT 2: i looked into the 4 Theives Vinegar Collective (breifly, just on wikipedia) and i did not realize that they made the EpiPencil, which is an open-source device that injects a mesured dose of epinephrine (a medication that can be bought from a trusted and legal distributor). that's awesome stuff, but it's less awesome that they now want to share chemistry knowlege that they don't necissarily have a full understanding of, and push automated synthesis for people who also don't have the foundational knowledge to ensure safety. not really great. i guess that's what happens when healthcare is entirely for-profit, and inaccessable to so many people.

61 comments

I my be in favor of taking control of ones own life (including medicine) but is just not true that handcrafted things are always better, a shitty artisan will make worse products than a good factory.
- That must assume the factory to be managed with integrity. Pharmaceuticals are usually held to a high standard. Chemistry in general is done best in larger batches with tightly controlled processes. But that also doesn't mean a skilled chemist can't make a perfectly fine batch with a good setup.
  4Thieves is good stuff though. Consider their epipen. They cut the cost by a factor of something like 1/30th of market. They still sourced the epinephrine from a commercial company tho.
- luigis glock jammed because parts of it were 3d-printed for example
  
  It jammed because he was using subsonic rounds. Even in factory built firearms, subsonic rounds frequently don't have enough oomph to properly cycle the slide. It's pretty normal to have to manually cycle the slide when using those and judging by how luigi performed in the video, he knew that.
- fair enough. i don't think educating shitty artisans to help them hone their skill is a bad thing tho, as long as safety and harm reduction are practiced (in the case of medicine especially)
  
  that's one load bearing 'as long as'
  
  Info is almost never a bad thing* and chemistry should absolutely be available and legal to everyone. Medicine (such as masculinizing and feminising HRT) should not be illegal to produce at home, the only drugs that might make any sense to ban personal production of are (in my opinion) literal bioweapons and chemical weapons (sarin nerve gas anyone).
  *(I have yet to see a good example of it being bad, but others claim some info is bad)
"Despite the fact that for most of human history bodily autonomy [...] was the norm"
LOL
I think you're posting in the wrong neighborhood, RFK Jr.
- These guys aren’t about alternative medicine, they’re about DIY manufacturing actual medicine to get around inflated prices.
  
  The OP doesn't get that across at all. Just going by the OP I would expect that they would start trying to sell me bleach to drink.
  
  That's a mighty fine line to walk 🧐
  
  neither have any meaningful quality control, this would get people killed if it wasn't juicero for chemistry that it is
  
  If that's what they stand for then the imagine is completely mistaken. DIY medicine manufacturing is perfectly legal unless you're selling it or it's a controlled substance.
- Are you addressing the man or the worm?
- pharmacists are trained extensively about every class of FDA approved medicine, but doctors (primarily PCPs) are given insanely huge caseloads of "Becky-Sue needs antibiotics" type cases. i think you misunderstood what the talk/stream is about tbh.
  manufacturing meds that are known to help and tested as such isn't exactly new, groundbreaking stuff. i don't think these guys are going to be pushing for scam-of-the-week alternative medicine lol
  
  What you posted in the OP definitely needs to be phrased better then. Because it looks like something an antivaxer or an MMS nutter would post. "Big government wants to make all our healthcare decisions for us and we needs to rebel" is basically the antivaxer mantra. It should at least somewhere mention that its about manufacturing your own pharmaceuticals.
  Also manufacturing your own medications is not illegal at all as long as they aren't controlled substances. You can make and swallow basically anything you want and the government won't stop you.
  Additionally antibiotics probably aren't the best example to use for something people can do on their own because misuse of antibiotics tends to result in things like antibiotic resistant infections which can then spread and cause harm to the community.
  
  The image says the Guv'ment has made what they do illegal.
  Manufacturing medicine for yourself is not illegal. Hell, giving it away is not illegal, unless your negligence causes harm or if you make a claim that your product is identical to a prescription drug.
  Selling it is illegal. Manufacturing dangerous controlled substances is illegal.
  
  Ever if they're not scammers, there will be many like them that are. Many people will not know the difference (see ivermectin, homeopathy, the supplements industry, gerson therapy). I get that this is a desperate measure for people in desperate situations, but that's exactly the kind of mark a scammer wants. I hope they do some good, but I also expect tragedies and lots of them.
Lmao, we have "don't drink this" labels on bleach. But sure, this is a good idea
- YOU are telling ME (a very smart person btw) what to do 😡
  -consumes a whole bottle of chlorine bleach in protest of the implication of being told what to do-
They make business cards dosed for an abortion and have shared the instructions online. Look up miso card
- i actually just learned that today... i am realizing i misunderstood the main purpose (probably) of the group. they are very focused on bodily autonamy, and pushing the boundaries of what's allowed, as far as information sharing goes.
  the lead guy also was suggesting heroin dealers lace their product with medication to prevent the spread of hepatitis, which sounds good, but doing so could result in an even more deadly super strain of the infection. he could have suggested wholly against sharing injection equipment, or emphasized the importance of "safe injection" sites that are staffed by medical personel, to help titrate the dose and safely end their addiction. at least he's not telling people to synthesize suboxone at home, but ugh.
  i don't necissarily trust the information the they're spreading, due to that and other factors, such as the lack of medical/synthesis knowledge outside of clandestine MDMA production. i do see that they do this more as "keep this stuff legal" measure, but a lot of their decisions seem reckless. maybe to further their cause/point? idk, it's a mess.
  
  Yeah i only looked at it briefly the other day when it came up. I like the idea behind it but can't comment on the science/chemistry so am overall hesitant to trust it. The miso cards seemed relatively simple to make and use though, and i believe without risk of overdose at the dosing used. Given the US politics going to start cracking down on abortions, i think the miso cards are a good idea. Id need to look more into the other things though before trusting the group overall.
- yeah but key issue is - they don't make it - they just take it from veterinary drugs. prostaglandins and steroids in particular would be very bad fit for a backyard chemistry - these are greasy, so crystallization is out, every step requires column chromatography for purification, analysis would probably include HPLC/MS just to know what's there
- i didn't write the part that is an image, it's a screenshot. i don't disagree with you, in that "decisions for your own body" is not something that has always historically, or before written history, been a given at all. it definitely should not be taken for granted, and had/has to be defended and fought for, much like labor rights.
  but also, you could try a better communication method than "you better -insert demand here-" statements. it's not condusive to a conversation, and seems more like a threat over a post on the interet upsetting you.
- 🤡 <--- this is you, defending human rights online
  i guess i will just have to wait for your implied "or else" to happen to me, since you're incapable of talking to people without making vaguely threatening demands the second you're offended, which i assume happens often.
  in case i wasn't clear, this is also you:
  [ 🤡 "Look at me! I solve problems that stopped happening before I was born by being an annoying, self-absorbed dumb-dumb that posts online!!" ]
  i deeply care if you're offended by any/everything, and will notify all relevant parties, if you are. there are none, but if there were any, i'd let them know you're upset.
  anyways, feel free to block me if you want, since honest discussion is beneath you, presumably. and dm me what your implied "or else" is, if you would like, just for funsies. i hope it was showing up at my place(s) of residence for irl harassment, because that would warm my heart. it would possibly give away the fact that i live in your walls tho, which would mean i have to move again... :<
I think the problem in this case isn't regulation, but that the regulation's being managed by knobheads. I do agree that said regulations must be fair and allow anyone who genuinely needs access to have safe and controlled access, that they should work for the benefit of the people and not the interests of shareholders/lobbyists/string-pullers, yes.
I don't think it'd be a good idea to allow everyone unrestricted access to every medicine under the sun willy-nilly. One such example would be antibiotics, which, while very effective when used appropriately, have been demonstrated to suffer massively from diminishing returns over time. Allowing people to self-medicate with such a substance would just lead to both increases in infections, as well as chemical damage to one's organism.
- the constituents' best interest unfortunately doesn't make the senate/congress any money. it would be nice if they had priorites outside making easy money by bending to every corporate lobby.
  unrestricted access would be a nightmare. Mexico's strategy of allowing trained pharmacists to dispense basic meds (like a z-pac) seems like a happy medium. seeing a doctor for stuff like that can be expensive and time consuming, and like an excuse for insurance companies to profit.
  
  That's my main problem, that we're not doing much which is in the interest of people, we're mostly just slapping rational-sounding labels on different forms of greed-driven practices. I agree that we need to rethink pretty much everything about medical regulations, if not to change, then to at least ensure that what's there is uncorrupted.
  That may be a potential solution, yes! Would most likely require bringing changes to the educational system as well (I'm just assuming, I have no first-hand experience with either studying, or practicing in this domain, but a more robust educational system would solve a lot of problems from the get go) in order to ensure that pharmacists have all the resources possible at their disposal. Or maybe it's just down to perception, one of those "having a custodial job is shameful" preconceptions, like "pharmacists are less reliable than doctors in establishing prescriptions because a doctor's a doctor..." Still working on identifying my biases, I apologise.
  Of course, my ideal would be that every single person on this planet have free access to medical care whenever and for whatever reason, so seeing a doctor wouldn't put half of somebody's family tree in debt for a sprained ankle...
- I think the problem in this case isn't the regulation, but that the regulation's being managed by knobheads
  this is definitely a take. have you ever heard of GMP? these rules were written in blood
  
  If you're referring to Good Manufacturing Practice, yes, although I didn't dive too much into it. And based on what I know of it, I'm not sure I get your point.
  If it's not that, then I'm completely in the weeds on this.
Is that the plot of the new Resident Evil game?

61 comments