You wouldn’t pirate a medicine, would you?
I would if I could!
I will say, there’s something scary about crafting your own medicine, I’d expect medicine to be highly precisely crafted in labs by highly educated professionals and that it’d be difficult and perhaps dangerous to make and take your own medicine. I could be wrong.
The things they write in the article are amazing, people can make their own life savine cure to hepatitis C for about 70 USD for their whole home made treatment, that just works? It seems too good to be true without any caveats.
Oh and, final thought, “Four Thieves Collective”? They really don’t beat around the bush. I like that
Four Thieves vinegar was supposedly used by four grave robbers to protect them from bubonic plague, each thief added their own herb to the infusion. It apparently worked well enough, they negotiated their freedom by giving up the recipe.
Nowadays, people vary the herbs, garlic is the constant.
It’s no secret herbs like oregano (most savory herbs actually) have antimicrobial properties. When you’re poor and a doctor’s visit is a day or more lost pay, the daycare is paid regardless of attendance, then the uninsured cost of the visit and pharmaceuticals, you learn.
That’s such a cool backstory, thanks!
You’re welcome.
It certainly sounds like it should be more difficult than that (and as far as I, a non-medical professional, know it is) but keep in mind the pharmaceutical industry is worth billions to a select few, and keep in mind back when Eli Lilly’s Twitter was hacked and posted insulin, a substance that costing some people over $1000/month just to live, would be free, their stock dropped 4.37% the next day.
Like I said, I’m no medical anything but like with previous products that have claimed to be medically beneficial, I think it’s worth at least taking a step back and looking at what someone stands to gain by claiming something vital is simple versus what those who claim otherwise stand to lose.
After all, I think we’ve all heard the story of the doctor who, in a fit of desperation, cured his wife’s cancer with bicarbonate of soda and then did so with more of his patients before being sued by Big Pharma.
Hack? It’s not even that. Just musk in his infinite wisdom enabling pay-to-get-checkmark on Xitter so all the fake/satire accounts immediately jumped on the opportunity.
Oh, was that it? I’d heard someone had hacked the EL Twitter account. That’s even dumber. Thanks for the correction and highlighting how much dumber the fallout was, luckily my misunderstanding didn’t take away from the main point.
HAHA no! Someone literally just changed their twitter handle, display name and avatar, then bought a blue check, and THAT’S IT.
The CLR (the reactor to create the medicine) costs about US$300-500 to make according to their website. Then there’s actually figuring out the software. They don’t sell recipes,as it were, so there’s time involved as well.
I’ve been poking around their site tonight after I saw this posted to another community. It’s worth looking at, imho.
I’d expect medicine to be highly precisely crafted in labs by highly educated professionals and that it’d be difficult and perhaps dangerous to make and take your own medicine. I could be wrong.
You’re not wrong—all of 4TVC’s work is extremely dangerous. Not as dangerous as you’d think, though. And, compared to living a life crushed by debilitating disease or debt, do those risks outweigh the outcome? Probably not.
It is easy to make if you have the know how and some equipment, also if it is already known what you need to make. For example, aspirin is known structurally (unless I am mistaken), so if you have the chemistry know-how and equipment, you can make your own.
However the tricky part is to get it as a safe medicine to take, that you do not have impurities that could be dangerous, toxic. You will need to be able to make quality and safety checks like that. Which I am not sure how easy that really is.
White willow bark and devil’s claw root contain naturally occurring salicylic acid, similar to aspirin. Better, but it tastes funky.
Nothing wrong with homemade medicine. Just know what you’re doing. I’ve used many, on myself and now adult child. Grandparents on both sides taught me. Their’s taught them. I’ve used comfrey to heal deep wounds on friendly strays.
Along the same line of pain management did you know that pretty much all the poppy seed (for ornamental flowers) you can buy at any garden store are opium poppies? You can grow them easily, then macerate the whole plant and extract in off the shelf alcohol and strain it for essentially laudanum which is great for a sleep aide or pain in low to moderate doses. Quite safe as well, obviously if you don’t abuse it.
As a European, this looks insane to me.
Capitalism working as intended though, undercutting the competition and all that.
My thoughts exactly. In Europe it’s part of our social welfare
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 ($$$$).
Could you elaborate a bit?
People make and take illicit drugs all the time. What’s the difference here?
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.)
I firmly think this would be a boon for many people; owning one of these is likely a lifeline that even small town physicians could utilize to dispense drugs freely or cheaply to patients in need.
This is something that I think small-town pharmacies could use to create compounds in cases of drug shortages. I think tools and programs and small labs like what are discussed in the article are a positive force for good; and that they should be not only allowed, but encouraged, for many drugs that are expensive, unavailable to someone in need and can be readily synthesized safely with a basic college level of chemistry training by someone in a pharmacy.
I think the potential risks and downsides are small right now; and I think more of it should be encouraged gently so that we can find out quickly what the flaws and limitations are so that we can put regulatory guardrails around it so that people do not harm themselves.
Yeah, one of the meds they talk about making is Vyvanse. That’s having a serious national shortage right now due to a combination of the DEA and corporate greed. It’s illegal for compounding pharmacies to make it but there’s no technical reason they couldn’t. Same for lots of this stuff.
So uh yeah as we all know a lot of amphetamines have already been “open source” for a long time.
And we also know the DEA really doesn’t approve of private production… Vyvanse itself only really was created as a produg because of their control of the amphetamine market and their desire for products with lower abuse potential.
If we could get the DEA out of the way anyways, it would make more sense to just make dextroamphetamine as it’s simple, cheap and effective.
It’s funny because a lot of people really like Vyvanse (that is: lisdexamphetamine) better than the alternatives. It was only made because the DEA wanted fewer people to take regular amphetamines and then a bunch of people responded well to it and the DEA went “wait! Not like that!”
Anyway, it’s on generic now. The only reason there’s a shortage is the DEA.
(Before you say “I’m not in the US and we have a shortage, too!” the drug companies killed all their production lines because the DEA basically gave them an excuse to try to force people off Vyvanse and onto meds that were still under patent.)
Depending on how Vyvanse is Scheduled; it might be legal to privately make. If it’s not scheduled like a standard amphetamine; the DEA is powerless.
I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not illegal to compound this stuff. But IANAL; and it doesn’t matter if the DEA thinks it is and will hassle anyone trying.
I am not a lawyer but as far as I know: it super isn’t. It’s also illegal for compounding pharmacies to make, where I live.
I’m not accounting for State laws; which may in fact be stricter. I’m talking about Federal Laws which might not explicitly forbid such things; so long as they’re done in an actually safe manner by professionals.
But, as I said before, if the DEA believes it has the power to stop that none-the-less; that’s what they will do, without respect to if the law is actually legally unclear or borderline. Unfortunately many pharmaceutical places don’t care to invite the wrath of the DEA; even if what they’re doing could be considered permissible; so long as they do not synthesize an exact drug that the Feds specifically name as a controlled substance.
Again; IANAL either. But I do think there’s a lot of room for small compounding pharmacies to synthesize various drugs to meet a patient’s needs quickly while waiting for proper shipments to arrive. There’s lots of compounds that are life-sustaining that do not fall under the DEA banner of authority.
That would be great. My insurance was already not covering Vyvanse super well, but I at least had the extra coupon thing from Vyvanse that was getting it under $80 per month. But the start of this year Vyvanse stopped the coupon since there was a generic and my insurance was also pushing that. Which I didn’t realize was a thing until I was about a week and a half past my refill and just kept getting auto calls from Walgreens that it was delayed.
Found out it was because the generic was on back order and they literally didn’t know when they (or any location in my county or the next one over) would even get it. So I had to demand that they just fill the name brand since I can’t function at work. The pharmacist was like “It will be over $200, are you sure you don’t want to wait?”. And all I could say was “Not like I really have a choice atm if I want to have my meds.” Which while the price was (and still is) fucked. I am glad I didn’t just keep waiting. I just said to put it on my file that I request the name brand if the generic isn’t available.
It does seem that the insurance has also seen this happening to a fuck ton of people as they are back to at least covering what they were before. Which is still costing me around $125 or so a month since Vyvanse didn’t re-instate their coupon. I had thought about going back to Adderall, but it doesn’t last as long and I have heard there have been shortages for both name brand and generic before Vyvanse and its generic.
Man, in lots of places the you can’t even get the name brand so at least there’s that.
I have heard, don’t know how true it is, that hospital pharmacies have first shot at the supplies so they’re less affected by stuff like this. For what that’s worth.
For sure. It might be that my city has a regional hospital in addition to being pretty close to a much larger city with multiple hospitals. Also likely helps that the larger city nearby has an airport which UPS and Fedex (might also have others) hubs in it. Along with those shipping companies having big ground sorting/shipping facilities in the same city.
I can currently roll with the prices as long as I can still get my meds. Just hoping that the generic versions are able to catch up next year.
Let him cook
Ok this is pretty cool, I just don’t know if I would trust it yet. I was actually thinking about the concept a bit ago, that I really don’t know what I’m taking if my doctor prescribes something to me… I do really like the concept, though.
Lab synthesis had it’s own set of problems. Imo, isolation of the"active" agent being one. Slippery elm and white willow teas don’t taste good, but maybe the “inactive” ingredients work with the active ingredient in ways that are simply not studied.
I’m going to stick to europe
I’m in Europe and can’t get my meds either
Oh? Where do you happen to be?
NL
Learning how to navigate the healthcare system here can be quite a drag, but it’s great once you have. I am kinda curious now tho what kind of care you’re not able to get
I’m trans. Giving up on the system has been good for me. It was like a one sided relationship. Now when I need something I just solve it on my own and it works.
Wait trans care isn’t decent here? I didn’t expect that. How would you get medication without a prescription?
Then you’ll also be surprised to learn that I am insulted constantly and laughed at. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of great people, but it is naive to think the Netherlands is a tolerant place. When you go through the medical system you face the same attitudes.
The issue is, if you believe in the system, you’ll give it a chance to traumatize you. This is added on top of other traumas such as losing your family, becoming homeless and so on. The trans thing itself isn’t actually the biggest part of it, it’s the culture and the society.
Sure, you could get lucky and have the right gp and meet the right psychiatrist, and then you have to wait 5 years before you get any medical support. I’ve tried. I mean I’ve literally been at a gp that I knew was trans friendly and I told her I was at risk of suicide, and she was OK with that.
And about the medicine, well you can compound it yourself. I honestly can’t live without it, because it is night and day for my mental wellbeing. Without it, it is extremely difficult to live. It’s like you’re in a state of dissociation and it’s painful. It’s quite a complex thing to describe, but you are effectively disabled and are at risk of suicide.
trans people: first time?
Wouldn’t “right to repair” regarding medicine just be universal healthcare?
Most people in right to repair states/countries still bring their iPhone to someone to fix (though they have the right to fix it themselves just as people I guess have the right to try to fix themselves rather than go to a doctor).
I don’t think you fully understand right to repair.
Companies (most egregiously Apple, but Samsung, Microsoft, and other tech, farming, and medical companies as well) have been actively introducing barriers to self or third-party repairs for decades. Apple serializes their displays on iPhones, so if you were to swap the screen on an iPhone without Apple’s authorization or without specific hardware, your iPhone disables specific features on your new screen, even if it’s a genuine Apple part. Apple also has incredibly unfair and invasive contracts with their authorized service providers such that they have to provide a slower return window than Apple’s own service centers. Furthermore, Apple et al. don’t sell every part needed to fix phones, and even when they do sell parts, they are often sold as packages or bundles that make the parts unnecessarily expensive.
To be clear, it’s rare for companies to ban third-party repairs outright. However, the vast majority of device makers artificially limit who can buy spare parts and who can fix their devices via software, by tight supply chain control, lawsuits, or getting governments to seize the few parts that could be obtained. This means that most third-party stores can’t compete with manufacturers because they can’t get genuine parts without becoming “authorized”, and by becoming authorized, they can’t provide a quality service.
States are absolved of patent law, so I keep hoping the west coast will make a compact where each state makes a major drug for their state health care plans and they share across.
This is incredible. But how to make this legal?
Guillotine all the CEOs and venture capitals.
Replace guillotine with imprison and lets include all the lobbyists, Super PAC members, super delegates, and politicians who accept money from foreign fascist states (like Russia and Israel)
Or keep the guillotine.
#TeamGuillotine
You know what? Yeah I wouldn’t pirate a medicine. They got me this time.
I would not trust that the pills he was throwing out to the crowd were legit. But if an independent third party could verify the drug, why not.
Also, I am not suffering from anything that is too expensive to fix. Maybe if I was desperate and not rich, I’d have a different opinion.
Intellectual property is theft. Is there a WikiLeaks for medicine? WikiMeds perhaps?
now we just need nile red to synthesize insulin. We’ll be set once that happens.
I have a friend in Portugal who uses semaglutide that’s compounded by a local pharmacy for about 35euros a month. I, in Canada still pay $230/month for Ozempic. For $120/month I could take a 2.5mg dose similar to Wegovy which in Canada right now is $400ish
Its the same drug, just no prefilled pen. All these pharmacies that offer it in Europe aren’t accessible from North America without a vpn, and then once accessible refuse to ship to Canada.
Fascinating article!
