this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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You wouldn't pirate a medicine, would you?

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[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 58 points 2 months ago (5 children)

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

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 37 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's such a cool backstory, thanks!

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[–] DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] Thordros@hexbear.net 10 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 46 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As a European, this looks insane to me.

Capitalism working as intended though, undercutting the competition and all that.

[–] nfsm@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 2 months ago

My thoughts exactly. In Europe it's part of our social welfare

[–] becausechemistry@lemm.ee 44 points 2 months ago (10 children)

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.

[–] EchoCranium@lemmy.zip 67 points 2 months ago (9 children)

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?

[–] OminousOrange@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Duranie@literature.cafe 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 9 points 2 months ago

Ironically most of these patented meds were developed with US funding, but somehow it isn't socialism when corporations benefit.

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[–] TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] winterayars@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 10 points 2 months ago

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.

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[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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')

[–] Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 2 months ago

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

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[–] Melody@lemmy.one 33 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] winterayars@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] potentiallynotfelix@lemdro.id 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 16 points 2 months ago (8 children)

I'm going to stick to europe

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[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 2 months ago

trans people: first time?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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).

[–] TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] obbeel@lemmy.eco.br 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is incredible. But how to make this legal?

[–] winterayars@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Guillotine all the CEOs and venture capitals.

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[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 12 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] whereBeWaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You know what? Yeah I wouldn't pirate a medicine. They got me this time.

[–] M500@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 months ago

Intellectual property is theft. Is there a WikiLeaks for medicine? WikiMeds perhaps?

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago

now we just need nile red to synthesize insulin. We'll be set once that happens.

[–] PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago

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.

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