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The Feds Are Officially Cracking Down on Basement Biohackers (gizmodo.com)
Kristen Brown, reporting for Gizmodo: The Food and Drug Agency has issued a stern warning to anyone who might be crazy enough to undertake gene therapy in the do-it-yourself fashion. Definitely don't do this at home, a statement released on Tuesday implies. And if you do, we'll throw every law we can at you. The FDA's deterrent comes on the heels of a brazen DIY gene therapy experiment, in which a 27-year-old software engineer injected himself with an unprove gene therapy for HIV designed by three biohacker friends. The first injection was streamed live on Facebook in October, and went viral after it was covered by Gizmodo. "You can't stop it, you can't regulate these things," patient zero, Tristan Roberts, told Gizmodo at the time. Apparently the FDA begs to differ.
They can't stop it, but just like drugs, they can drive it underground so people that choose to do this will be unable to seek medical attention without fear of being arrested.
There is no freedom without self ownership.
I know someone who drove the development of a new genetic treatment for his son who had an incurable, fatal genetic disease. This person is extremely smart and well connected to genetic medicine experts. The treatments were successful in saving his son from a steady decline and early death, and are now being trialed in the US. He did what any parent would do to save his child's life, if they were in the same situation. But he knew the legal risk also, and most doctors didn't want to know about or support his efforts, for fear of legal repercussions. So he had to fly to a hospital in Mexico monthly to have the treatments administered. When the choice is between dying or facing some legal repercussions for trying to save a life, I think most of us would go with trying to save your own life, or the life of a family member. The FDA needs to back off.
No, not Hitler. But he did have a German name.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Would you allow someone without a medical license to operate on you?
Under normal circumstances no but sometimes circumstances aren't normal. Sometimes the people with the medical license are prohibited from helping you by law or it costs too much to hire them. Sometimes people are curious or desperate or delusional. Sometimes people see a profit in doing things without a license. Quackery is a real thing (see homeopathy). If you have a condition that will kill you and the people with medical licenses won't help you, chances are good you'll look at other options you might not normally consider.
The main problem with this is that for every smart genius with good connections to genetic experts, there's thousands of deluded parents who pump their kids full of bleach because some unscrupulous assholes want to make a quick buck pretending to be medical experts.
I can see your point and I do agree that in this particular case it saved a life, but we have seen what damage patent medicine by self proclaimed medical geniuses can, did and still does.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not all "freedom" is desirable.
For instance the "freedom" to abuse others without consequence; is generally NOT considered a "freedom" we should have.