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BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

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Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#91

Post by [deleted] »

galleywest200 wrote: post #89
ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

In regards to objects like the guitar listed in the quote, there is a draw to how a hand-crafted item can be _unique_ due to slight imperfections. This can range from just slight imperfections in the wood to things such as believing your guitar has a unique sound. Sure the factory guitar may sound "perfect", but the only guitar that sounds like this handmade guitar is this handmade guitar.

[deleted]

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#92

Post by miki123211 »

namuol wrote: post #39
8bitbeep wrote: post #18

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. Right. We all know the best chips in the world are made by local artisan silicon-etchers. None of that TSMC pasteurized crap. You simply can't beat a 1nm brush and a steady hand. We all know this industrial revolution thing was a mistake.

I don't think this analogy resonates particularly well with the drug manufacturing process. I would think in general the bulk of the expense of a drug comes from its R&D, not manufacture. The cost of manufacture probably varies wildly (with the most expensive being bespoke treatments), but as the talk shows, there have been many examples where a (relatively) simple-to-manufacture drug is kept from those who need it d…

> I would think in general the bulk of the expense of a drug comes from its R&D

Not just its R&D, but also the R&D of the 10 other drugs which looked promising, had a lot of money invested in them, but didn't end up working out in the end.

You could very easily pass a law invalidating all drug patents, and making generics for any drug easily available. This would make all drug prices go down drastically. It would definitely work, there's no question about it. The anti-capitalists are very much right about this.

What they're missing, though, is that this law would completely remove the incentive to make any new drugs. The progress of medicine would instantly slow down to a halt. All existing drugs would be very close to free, but all currently-uncured illnesses would forever stay uncured.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#93

Post by spookie »

daveguy wrote: post #40

I guess they're not so concerned with the "oops, poison" aspect of manufacturing drugs. Or ethics driven testing of drugs for safety and efficacy. Seems like a great way to fk up and kill people. Also, they say compounding pharmacies are illegal, but they're not. Not in the US or Germany. There's one down the street from me and my neighbor was a compounding pharmacist.

Honestly, in the EU it's quite common for pharmacies to make compounded drugs. At least in my country ALL pharmacies are required to have the equipment and staff required to do so. I would be surprised if it wasn't the case in others.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#94

Post by emmelaich »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #21
borski wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it has. Abortion access is one example.

Regular people would buy their mifepristone from across the border, in Mexico or ask a friendly Mexican. That's the correct way of hacking the system, not that kind of circus show. That said, one wishes that you hadn't dragged abortion in, they use it to derail the discussion around universal medical care. Hey, you can't afford the dentist, but at least we fight for abortion.

A bit of googling tells me that over 2/3rds of USA states allow mifepristone. And the Supreme Court unanimously rejected an effort to restrict access to it earlier this year.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#95

Post by ben_w »

miki123211 wrote: post #92
namuol wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this analogy resonates particularly well with the drug manufacturing process. I would think in general the bulk of the expense of a drug comes from its R&D, not manufacture. The cost of manufacture probably varies wildly (with the most expensive being bespoke treatments), but as the talk shows, there have been many examples where a (relatively) simple-to-manufacture drug is kept from those who need it d…

> I would think in general the bulk of the expense of a drug comes from its R&D Not just its R&D, but also the R&D of the 10 other drugs which looked promising, had a lot of money invested in them, but didn't end up working out in the end. You could very easily pass a law invalidating all drug patents, and making generics for any drug easily available. This would make all drug prices go down drastically. It would def…

> All existing drugs would be very close to free, but all currently-uncured illnesses would forever stay uncured.

Unless there's government funding.

Also consider that for both patents and government funding, there are other jurisdictions which won't do what your government does, so there's a Nash equilibrium problem where every country has people who want to defect (delete patents) to get free stuff whose research was paid for by the profit margin in the jurisdiction which keeps the patents.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#96

Post by ryao »

galleywest200 wrote: post #89
ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

In regards to objects like the guitar listed in the quote, there is a draw to how a hand-crafted item can be _unique_ due to slight imperfections. This can range from just slight imperfections in the wood to things such as believing your guitar has a unique sound. Sure the factory guitar may sound "perfect", but the only guitar that sounds like this handmade guitar is this handmade guitar.

I would not consider that evidence for the items being better, but it does explain why some people are drawn to hand made items.

I consider such items to be worse and not just because they are objectively worse. Items break and are lost. When you become emotionally attached to an object such as a unique imperfect guitar, you are guaranteed to have sorrow when it is lost (e.g. in a fire).

In any case, the original premise was that such items are better and thus hand made medicine is better too. However, you do not want variations in medicine. During the pandemic, my doctor had a suspicion that the dosages of certain drugs had been lowered by the manufacturers versus what was on the label. That posed a problem for him because he could not properly treat patients if he had no clue what was actually in the pills filling his prescriptions. His suspicion had stemmed from seeing a trend among his patients where the efficacy was dropping in a way consistent with the dosages being lowered, although he was not sure by how much. If he had tried to compensate by prescribing larger dosages, when the manufacturers began to get things right again, his patients would have been taking overdoses. His solution was to switch them to alternative drugs and hope that the manufacturers of those drugs were producing pills that matched their labels. This is why precision is very important when it comes to medicine and the last thing anyone needs are imperfections in drug manufacturing.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#98

Post by throwaway984393 »

8bitbeep wrote: post #18

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. Right. We all know the best chips in the world are made by local artisan silicon-etchers. None of that TSMC pasteurized crap. You simply can't beat a 1nm brush and a steady hand. We all know this industrial revolution thing was a mistake.

[dead]

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#99

Post by yinser »

ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

You are directionally correct but the top of the line chisels are in fact hand made in Japan and I suspect the same for knives. Lee Valley and some other higher end manufacturers make some damn fine chisels but chisels are hand tools and I would guess 9/10 woodworkers who use chisels will choose hand made Japanese chisels over any factory manufactured tools.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#100

Post by roughly »

ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

High end automated processes can indeed hit extremely high tolerances, but that’s a trade-off on cost (give or take) and often not one the factory is making. I’m reminded of a story about GM, where the top execs would preview drive all the new models - except the ones that were given to the execs had been hand-tuned by engineers to fix the manufacturing slop, so the GM brass was convinced their cars were much better than they were.
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