A Homeland for Medical Freedom!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Well, it has a better shot at eternal life than a dead man on two sticks. 😁

Longevity enthusiasts want to create their own independent state. They’re eyeing Rhode Island.
Zuzalu, a pop-up city in Montenegro has provided a temporary home for people who plan to set up a new jurisdiction to encourage biohacking and fast-track drugs that slow or reverse aging.

By Jessica Hamzelou
May 31, 2023
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/05/31/1073750/new-longevity-state-rhode-island/

[—Participant]

People should be encouraged to self-experiment with unproven treatments if they wish.

I agree in principle. I think it gets a lot harder in practice the further the end user gets from research and development. That’s where the lines between false advertising, medical malpractice, and flat out poisoning people may start to blur.

But assuming risks have been presented honestly and treatments haven’t been presented with false promise, I have less concern. I don’t generally make it my business what people do to their own bodies. I’d suspect most participants would have the sort of money where potentially increased health care and insurance costs aren’t much of a concern.

[jakelafortParticipant]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/27/joseph-dituri-professor-living-underwater

If it is demonstrated that the pop/boost to health and longevity is not a false start then the wealthy will want their own deluxe underwater pods. Come out with a pod bod while watching cod. Ok on that shitty rhyme time my slime aine worth a dime.

[UnseenParticipant]

In the future, some people will no longer age and live lives so long we can hardly image.

Who will they be? I think you know. (The uber-wealthy.) But they won’t be with us…

Of course, uber-wealthy tech entrepreneurs aren’t just buying rockets for their personal amusement. They’re founding or investing in space travel – they want to get you off-planet, too. Well, not you-you, but someone like you with much, much, much more money. (What if the mega-rich just want rocket ships to escape the Earth they destroy?)

So…what else is new?

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

Jimi was singing about the idea ages ago, and were he still around, he might dig your lyrics too:

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

All technology above the level of a stick starts that way, but with patented ideas becoming public domain, with competition between manufacturers, with generics and store brands, things get cheaper…if no force holds it back. The FDA, DEA, and State medical boards overseeing Certificates Of Need are holding back that progress now. This offshore refuge hopes to end-run around all that.

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen, All technology above the level of a stick starts that way, but with patented ideas becoming public domain, with competition between manufacturers, with generics and store brands, things get cheaper…if no force holds it back. The FDA, DEA, and State medical boards overseeing Certificates Of Need are holding back that progress now. This offshore refuge hopes to end-run around all that.

Oh, the old “things will be better, maybe, for your great grandchildren” ploy.

I think my invite got lost in the mail, but I’m not buying your free market capitalism mumbo jumbo. Why should I? The capitalists themselves ain’t buyin’ it!

As the Marxist agitator Adam Smith once said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

Smith understood that capitalists hate capitalism. They don’t want to compete with one another, because that would interfere with their ability to raise the prices their customers pay and reduce the wages they pay their workers. Thus Peter Thiel’s anticapitalist rallying cry, “competition is for losers,” or Warren Buffett’s extreme horniness for businesses with “wide, sustainable moats.”

These anti-capitalist capitalists love big government. They love no-bid military contracts, they love ACA subsidies for health insurance companies, they love Farm Bill cash for Cargill and Monsanto. What they don’t love is markets. (Capitalists hate capitalism)

There’s a reason why drugs cost so much less in Canada, Mexico, and Europe and that’s because their governments negotiate drug prices, but for you that’s probably a bad thing.

And so, drug prices are so high here because they are cheaper elsewhere, meaning that if the companies want to make huge profits, it has to be off your back and mine. So much for free markets.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  Unseen.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I am unable to watch TV when I am in the U.S. This is because of the constant stream of adverts every few minutes.  The majority are about medical devices and pills. But what makes it painful is the repetition. It is disgraceful.

Who thinks that the Sackler family are capitalists….or is there another term we could use?

[DavisModerator]

Lol Reg. I thought it was just me. I genuinely found it extremely stressful watching American television. The breaks are so frequent…the adds so brazenly brainwashing (I mean they all are, but just so brazen in North America). And God forbid it is during an election campaign, where each side tries to convince you their opponent will turn America into a Nazi death camp or eats puppies for breakfast. Local car dealership commercials are particularly bizarre and something as simple as a Coca-Cola commercial gives you the idea it is a can of magic pixy dust that will give you super powers and change your life into one of paradisiacal contentment. After 2 minutes of commercials I felt like I have been utterly pelted by the most aggressive consumerist screaming manipulation. The commercials in cinemas are the previous, only on an even grander more anxiety inducing scale. Thank Zeus for Netflix and ad blockers!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg and Davis,

I love the subscription-based commercial-free streaming services too, but I have no problem with the free-to-the-end-user streaming services with commercials either. The commercials are usually entertaining if nothing else and the medical commercials are a layperson’s mini-medical education!

For instance, Botox, whose public domain name is food poisoning, has not only been harnessed for wrinkle removal, but also to fight chronic migraine headaches, as well as cerebral palsy and other spasticity conditions. It isn’t just for Nancy Lugosi anymore!

And Skyrizi is not only for plaque psoriasis, but moderate to sever Crohn’s Disease. Amazing!

These drugs are like floor wax and dessert topping!

And my Doctor obviously heard about Mounjaro from a marketing campaign. For the past month, Mounjaro has got my blood sugar levels back to normal, helped me lose most of 16 pounds combined with modest use of stationary pedals, has totally suppressed my urge for sugar, and slashed my grocery spending even greater that the cost of the drug!

If you going to sing the praises of health care, it helps to know something about it…and it’s source.

The Oxycontin “deaths of despair” are truly horrible. And blame belongs squarely on a “War On (Some) Drugs” that has criminalized research that could re-engineer opioids and other drugs so they could kill pain without killing people. A place like Zuzalu in Montenegro could be the place where the research could begin…if the Drug Warriors of the world don’t lay seige to it.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Punctuation

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

Oh, the old “things will be better, maybe, for your great grandchildren” ploy.

Not at all. The story of Lasik eye surgery is a testimony to where the real delay is in health care and what brings the cost down.

The idea of reshaping the cornea behind LASIK eye surgery started in the 1950s, was done by laser in 1980, and the FDA finally approved the procedure in the U.S. in 1992!

LASIK–Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LASIK

From just last decade, LASIK cost tens of thousands of Dollars per eye. Now it is $2000 per eye and $4000 for two! The reason? It is precisely because LASIK is not covered by either private insurance or Medicare/Medicaid.

How Much Does LASIK Cost in 2023?

LASIK Surgery Cost

Now imagine what other medical marvels we could have available sooner and more affordable with Government bureaucracy and third-party payment out of the way?

[RichRaelianParticipant]

Hi! That is the kind of freedom I’d like to exercise not because I’am a doctor or a healer but I believe in safe havens for certain medical conditions that have been labeled illegal of course I’am speaking of abortion for the reacord.

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

You’re trotting out one case as a refutation? Come on, even you must know that’s irrelevant to my post.

Even so, it took 43 years even according to your own timeline. A lot of people didn’t benefit.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

The delay of the LASIK laser procedure from 1980 to 1992 was entirely created by the FDA.

I’ll recheck the article, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the FDA delayed the pre-laser procedure as well. A Mercantillist Protectionist mentality and crazy litigiousness also factors into these things also.

My own dealings with insurance in getting a Diabetic blood monitor also confirms what I always say about third-party payments.

The only monitor my insurer covered was also the most expensive and was a clunky device that required coding by the user.

And because of communication SNAFUs between the Doctor, the insurer, the monitor company, and the Pharmacist, I was delayed in getting the monitor by a month after my diagnosis!

Finally, I broke down and asked the Doctor if the Over-The Counter monitors worked as well. She said yes and after that, I went with a ReliOn Monitor that not only was less expensive than the insured monitor and worked easily and well, but needed no coding!

I paid out-of-pocket for the device and still pay out-of-pocket for the strips, but the peace of mind of knowing my condition was well worth it. I also discovered that a lancet holder was not required to get a reading and the lancet alone sufficed.

I’ve used ReliOn ever since and I joke that ReliOn is two letters short of “Religion” and the closest thing that I’ll ever get to Religion. 😇😁

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Changed "testers" to "monitors."

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

I’m diabetic as well. Type 2. I get insulin N and R in vials at $35 each for a 90 day supply and syringes are quite inexpensive for me. I don’t use a monitor. I just check my blood sugar before meals and whenever I feel I need to (I know the symptoms of hypoglycemia by now). Both the meter and the test strips are totally free.

This is using a so-called “Advantage Plan.” Even el-cheapo Walmart insulin is $25/vial which would cost me about $400 for the same quantity, so despite all the caveats about Advantage Plans, I’m glad I’m on one.

The main problem I have, since I’m living on a very limited income, is that even the 20% copays are too high for me to handle when it comes to serious matters. And dental coverage is very minimal and even basic dental procedures have become quite expensive, driven up, I’m sure, by the back office costs of dealing with the documentation requirements of various insurance companies. Recently, I had two root canals and crowns costing me $2700 AFTER insurance. Luckily(?), for some reason, I have a credit card with a $13,000 credit limit which will end up driving me into bankruptcy at some point, if I live long enough.

I used to have company health insurance when I worked a 30 hour week at Goodwill to make some mad money. I had a heart attack and it cost me only $30 total. That included an MRI and other tests, a stent, and 2 days and nights in a hospital bed. $30 for a prescription medication I took for a short while afterward.

Medical bills are the #1 cost of bankruptcy in the U.S. In most European countries I wouldn’t have the worries and stress (mentally and financially) I have now.

Your “solutions,” such as they are, are a bunch of pie-in-the-sky what ifs that aren’t going to happen.

We always have money to make WMD’s (every submarine, aircraft carrier, bomber, etc., is a WMD) but precious little to spend on the health and welfare of our citizens. The U.S. system has us living in a topsy-turvy world.

Do you see now why people like

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  Unseen.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  Unseen.

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