If it was the best healthcare in the world, we’d have the best outcomes and we don’t even have that for rich people. We have a (non-metric) shit ton of world class research universities and highly respected agencies like the FDA and NIH but Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, can’t even get the mental health services he obviously needs.

I’d obviously rather go to an American hospital than a hospital in most of the world but spending a lot to cover up a shitty system isn’t as good as a functioning system.

Edit: I originally had NHS instead of NIH but the NHS, is, obviously, where British people get their brain medicines.

Did you really call the US healthcare system the best in the world?

Pirating movies and games can’t kill you

Home brewing seizure medication can

The all new sudafeb…like Sudafed but with a D at the end because they’re chemically the same just with a D at the end.

I wish there was some kind of open source collective organization under which you could release anything with eternal open source license that’d be free forever. It could be anything from software, tech or medicine like penicillin so that megacorps could not benefit from it in any way.

The New Text Document makes this.

This is extremely dangerous and also something I feel must be considered a natural and obvious extension of a right I believe to be fundamental: bodily autonomy.

There is a significant distinction between the right to bodily autonomy and the right to distribute quack medicine. And that’s sort of the rub. As soon as you start marketing your product to third parties under false pretexts, we’re not longer talking about an individual’s right to self. And we get into an even more tangled web when we start talking about health care for children or the elderly, who lack the mental acuity to make informed choices.

Also this is cyberpunk as hell and aesthetically I’m so here for it

Everyone wants to get the military grade Sandevistan drive. Nobody thinks they’re going to succumb to cyberpsychosis.

I think an off the shelf microlab that can reliably synthesize a particular medicine is something that’s commercially viable, which is probably a safe middle ground here and sort of what they’re proof of concepting.

Rather than putting together a DIY lab like this, a pre-made kit that makes one medication would easily make a ton of meds available. Not just here but all around the world.

I would say the next step would probably be to create a certification process for microlabs categorizing their safety and effectiveness

I agree with the idea of bodily autonomy. Above all, someone should have the right to do, or not do, whatever they want with their own person.

Whether that is to listen to doctors advice, buy pharmaceuticals and self-administer as prescribed, or even end your own life, and everything in between.

Quick disclaimer, suicide should still be evaluated by a psychiatric professional, and simply being suicidal shouldn’t necessarily mean that nobody can, or should stop you from committing that act. I’m mostly referring to medically assisted self termination, after the appropriate safeguards, checks, and balances have been cleared. Simply wanting to off yourself without being cleared as having sound mind should be something we, as a society, should address carefully, with the assistance of mental health professionals.

With all that being said: I probably would DIY some pharmaceuticals. Anything that’s an opiate or other restricted substance, definitely not. But if I can buy the ingredients without needing a special permit or license, I definitely would.

What’s broken is largely insurance setting prices.

I don’t see this fixing it.

Oh, also I have an exceedingly rare hereditary disease, so it feels like a certainty I’ll need it for myself someday.

I know someone whose life is made substantially worse because they have a lack of access to healthcare. They live in Europe and can’t get access to the specialized medicine that they need in the timeframe that they need it in. I’m not saying that socialized medicine is bad—I’m actually all for it—but it needs to be implemented well for it to actually work. This is just my anecdotal evidence to say that just because everyone has access doesn’t automatically mean it’s adequate access.

Yeah… This is a bit sketchy. Pharmaceuticals aren’t just something that an amateur can make by following step by step instructions. Even something as simple as baking a cake requires some basic experience to know when things are going right or wrong.

Even maintaining the calibration on a CLR requires some background experience, let alone building and programming one all on your own. With your actual reactor being as small as a mason jar, it means the margin for error is going to be small as well.

This is neat for people with a background in chemistry, but I don’t really see it as anything but dangerous for the general public. They also are fudging their math a bit to make things seem a lot cheaper. Reagents can be really cheap at bulk prices, but you have to spend the time looking for them, and they aren’t equating the cost of a trained chemist making these medications.

If you’re going to die because you can’t afford it, then does the risk really matter?

Actually it’s the name for a mix of vinegar, garlic, and herbs that was a home remedy to help prevent the plague.

You’ve gone to a malicious website. Now you’ve died.

See, the risks of surfing the web incorrectly are slightly different than the risks of creating medicine incorrectly.

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