11 ms·
The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective
- 1996 8y ago> “The rhetoric that is espoused by people who defend intellectual property law is that this is theft,” Laufer told me. “If you accept that axiomatically, then by the same logic when you withhold access to lifesaving medication that's murder. From a moral standpoint it's an imperative to enact theft to prevent murder.” Exactly what I would also say as pro capitalist but anti patent. The article is not about anarchism. It is about not staying idle while people can't afford drugs. The methods may be questionable, like the partnership with dealers. But at least they try to do something. I just hope there is a way for them to make money without legal risks
- lovich 8y agoI don't see how that's a pro capitalist argument. Your not getting rid of a monopoly on the IP, you are compelling people to give up there property to prevent a worse evil
- 1996 8y agoYou asked before that I clarify my arguments. If the recipe is so secret, do not patent it. Some companies forgo patents for that reason. Here nobody is compelling anyone. My anti patent point just means not letting the government enforce IP rights. In case like these, it is not just ideology - it is morally wrong as explained in the quote.
- lovich 8y agoI am fairly against IP laws as well without being capitalist. My point was that the argument in the quote, "If you accept that axiomatically, then by the same logic when you withhold access to lifesaving medication that's murder. From a moral standpoint it's an imperative to enact theft to prevent murder.” was not a capitalist argument itself. Forcing people to give up property that was legally acquired, to avoid a worse evil, seems more socialist than anything else to me
- 1996 8y agoI believe IP laws cause net loss on the economy as a whole - just like restricting immigration. Here, I think the pro capitalist and socialist arguments are aligned. I quoted the argument because I felt taking the extreme of the opposing idea was quite good Murder is also bad because a dead person no longer participates in the economy after the funeral. This is a loss for the economy as a whole. Even people completely lacking any morality can understand that.
- dsr_ 8y agoThese people are Hackers.
- jgtrosh 8y agoI wish there was an equivalent of CI and peer-reviewed pull-requested contribution to their system, to ease collaborative improvement to the methods. You'd really want many sets of eyes able to look at all aspects of the drugs to vastly reduce risk.
- femiagbabiaka 8y agothat sounds like a magnificent startup idea that I completely lack the expertise to execute on. hopefully someone else tackles it.
- yosito 8y agoI saw one of Michael's talks. They do share the data about their hardware and processes openly (though I don't know where/how, since it's not the kind of info I understand). But one of the things he mentioned needing more open information about is the chemistry. There are databases of chemical reactions that can be used to train AIs to find new, easier and cheaper ways to synthesize medications, but those databases are controlled by large for-profit corporations who refuse to release the data. Presumably for "safety" reasons, but it's not hard to imagine that "safety" isn't the whole story.
- Footkerchief 8y agoSome of said databases: http://www.organicworldwide.net/content/reaction-databases http://www.organicworldwide.net/content/reaction-databases
- rubyn00bie 8y agoI don’t know if YC proactively seeks organizations to fund but these folks look like a pretty small potential investment with a huge social win. If ever there was a time to “do good” with that enormous pile of capital and connections y’all have— this might be it.
- 34k5uoi5ui 8y agoThis is truly amazing work, and I hope they are able to achieve their goals. The future of humanity depends on it. If you want to help, they need someone to crack a rar file containing the Chematica data (which was acquired by Merck pharmaceuticals) https://twitter.com/MichaelSLaufer/status/1022637265602768896 https://twitter.com/MichaelSLaufer/status/102263726560276889...
- imbruglia 8y agoI hate to be negative. But I have seen enough of these sort of initiative over the years to be skeptical. In reality it seldom makes sense to do it yourself. Few things in general needs to be built or invented. If they do chances are they aren't the ones to do it. It almost always makes more sense acquire the capability to do what you want somewhere else. But as soon as you do that all the edgy rhetoric and potential goes out the window in favor of liability and reality. So reality eventually becomes the enemy of the escapist fantasy. And the powerful remain powerful while the real problems go unsolved. I would very much like to be wrong though.
- mplewis 8y agoProviding access to otherwise-inaccessible drugs is a real problem. The fact that normal people can accomplish this through an anarchist collective is incredible and should be lauded.
- ethbro 8y ago“Pursuing science is a human right,” Laufer said. “In fact, it’s the human right from which all other rights flow. You have to be able to do whatever you want to your body and to think the way you want.”
- mabbo 8y ago> You have to be able to do whatever you want to your body and to think the way you want. The problem with most libertarian ideas like this is externalities. If you take something made incorrectly and become incredibly sick, society has to either take care of you or let you die- and no one wants to let people just die. So instead, society foots the bill for taking care of you. I'm not saying these guys aren't fighting a damn good fight. They're in the right, in my mind. But if they start a large enough movement with enough people then someone somewhere is going to eventually cut a corner or make a mistake and get someone killed or made seriously ill. And what then?
- monochromatic 8y ago> After a few minutes of gloating about pharma bro Martin Shkreli “rotting at Fort Dix” for raising the price of Daraprim Except that’s totally unrelated to why he’s in prison.
- pauljaworski 8y agoRight, that bothered me a little too.
- j88439h84 8y agoSeems like that's exactly why he's in prison, legalisms aside.
- mertd 8y agoHe went due to securities fraud but one could argue that, if it weren't due to the drug price thing, he could have flown under the radar, since the investors didn't lose any money.
- andrepd 8y agoJust goes to show.
- JshWright 8y agoYeah, and Al Capone just went to jail for "tax evasion"...
- citrablue 8y agoHe did go to jail for that, unless I'm confused. He brought attention to his tax evasion for other reasons... but is it difficult to acknowledge that the direct legal cause of his jail time was evasion?
- jakelazaroff 8y agoThe claim being made is that the authorities wanted him in jail one way or another, because he was a gangster. Tax evasion just happened to be the charge they could make stick.
- jessaustin 8y ago...Chematica’s database is currently posted on a password protected website on the dark web. During his talk at HOPE this year, Laufer implored the audience to help with cracking the password and releasing the data into the world. They're talking about an encrypted file, right? If Merck just had this posted on "the dark web", constantly hammering them with bad passwords would probably clue them in. Incidentally, which did Merck value more, the database or the opportunity to keep it away from this group?
- zxcmx 8y agoRAR files can be cracked offline.
- jessaustin 8y agoSure, but "password protected website" is a weird synonym for "RAR file".
- nowarninglabel 8y agoIt's not saying the RAR file is that. It's saying you can only get access to the file through a password-protected website on the dark web.
- jsjohnst 8y agoSee my sibling comment. The article told the story slightly misworded.
- jsjohnst 8y agoThe RAR file was posted on a “dark web” site. The password needing to be cracked is the one on the RAR file itself, not the site. Source: I was at the HOPE talk he gave and also talked to Michael at the conference about it too.
- r3dk1ng 8y agoIt is an encrypted zip file. Not a password protected website. Not a rar. I downloaded it and ran file on it. Oddly the filename is .tar. $ file .reaxys.tar .reaxys.tar: Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract As one of the other top level comments said, the links to it are here: https://twitter.com/MichaelSLaufer/status/1022637265602768896 https://twitter.com/MichaelSLaufer/status/102263726560276889...
- darawk 8y ago> Indeed, Laufer and his collaborators can’t stop pissing off powerful people because Four Thieves is living proof that effective medicines can be developed on a budget outside of institutional channels. Synthesized. Not developed. Synthesizing medicines is easy. Developing them is extremely difficult.
- klipt 8y agoI can "render" a movie onto my harddrive from bittorrent in minutes. I don't know why Pixar has to spend so much time on their rendering! /s
- malkia 8y agoIf stealing movies helped people survived, given financial difficulties, then they'll do it. Survival beats "no-steal" laws.
- wavefunction 8y agoin the face of immorality, morality stand supreme
- lovich 8y agoWould you wait to die instead of stealing something to save yourself?
- sabujp 8y agothis is the worst analogy ever
- tibu 8y agoNot really. Pixar has to render a movie before you can download it. Pfizer has to develop the medicine before you can synthesize it.
- darawk 8y ago> “The rhetoric that is espoused by people who defend intellectual property law is that this is theft,” Laufer told me. “If you accept that axiomatically, then by the same logic when you withhold access to lifesaving medication that's murder. From a moral standpoint it's an imperative to enact theft to prevent murder.” If it's murder to apply intellectual property law and withhold drugs...what do we call the untold number of deaths that will result in the absence of a profit motive for developing new medicines? Is that murder? The views of these people are childish and dangerous. I love their spirit, but their actual message here is just stupid and illiterate of basic economics.
- blhack 8y agoWell if we could just rich people to find their projects. /s
- darawk 8y agoOk. Let's imagine a world where he achieves his dream. We've democratized access to molecular synthesis with no quality issues. Anyone, anywhere can safely and effectively produce any medicine of their choosing, without regard for IP laws. Now what? Well, on the one hand, everyone on earth will have cheap, timely access to every medicine that currently exists. That's pretty awesome. On the other hand, who's going to fund the development of new medicines? I'm certainly not going to invest in it, are you?
- brm 8y agoWell, I can think of a few countries that might find it worthwhile to invest in the health of their citizens. In America we’ll have to make it part of the department of defense in order to get it funded.
- darawk 8y agoYes, socialized funding is a viable, serious option. There's reasons to be skeptical of the results it would produce IMO, but it's definitely a legitimate proposal.
- blhack 8y agoThese people are going to kill somebody. But hey, lets do it and be legends! Think of the instagram likes!
- spaceflunky 8y ago>“...the price of Daraprim hasn’t changed,” he said. He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of white pills. “I guess I better hand out some more,” Laufer said as he tossed the Daraprim into the audience. I found it hard to keep reading after that. What's it called when people get so emotional about a cause they just start acting irrationally and doing more harm than good?
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoI'm not sure I understand what harm was done here?
- citrablue 8y agoIn that moment, representing the barriers to safe and effective medicine as something that one can throw from their pockets. In the long term, bring drugs to people without thorough testing and regulations. It's one thing for e.g. stage 4 cancer. It's another to let a Vioxx get through. Strict regulations around the development and testing of drugs exist because no human is capable of evaluating efficacy for themselves, absent stringently controlled testing processes. We laugh about "snake oil salesmen", but given the amount of money in nutriceuticals, GNC, and the like... I'd say the only damn holding back the torrent on the unsuspecting is the FDA.
- Robotbeat 8y agoThey also exist because it's INSANELY profitable to be able to hold someone hostage for their literal life. As long as the IP is tightly controlled and the ever-stricter regulations build your moat for you, you'll make insane money. Look, I agree this isn't likely to be the scalable and safe solution that solves the cost crisis. But maybe we DO need someone to throw pills out for free just to show the absurdity of our current system. Because if it's something you need to live and the system is built to make something fundamentally cheap ultra-expensive, it's REALLY hard to see what this man could be doing wrong...
- 8y ago
- agotterer 8y agoMichaels first HOPE talk in 2016 is really worth watching - https://archive.org/details/livestream-130731041 https://archive.org/details/livestream-130731041. I was at his 2018 talk and the Vice article did an excellent job of summing it up. Usually the HOPE videos come online a few weeks after the conference (it was last weekend).
- Something1234 8y agoI was there too. I loved his talk, but I didn't get a good picture of the file hash or link he wanted us to download.
- agotterer 8y agoThis was the one I took: https://pasteboard.co/HwyMWYX.jpg https://pasteboard.co/HwyMWYX.jpg
- waluigi 8y agoThis owns. It's important to realize that a lot of at-risk populations that would most benefit from medication are often the most economically disadvantaged, and that our current healthcare system often excludes them from the help they need. Obviously, lab-grade medication is less risky than stuff that's been produced in a mason jar, but when the choice is between having access to life-saving medical equipment or not, the choice is pretty clear. If you have concerns with how this could hurt people, then the best solution would be to make sure that everyone has access to the care they need, rather then allocating care on the basis of how much they can afford.
- robbiep 8y agoAn interesting approach to the criminal lack of healthcare to vulnerable populations in the US (and potentially other places with third world health systems)
- briandear 8y agoIs there actually a criminal lack of medical care? What is Medicaid? Tens of billions of dollars are going to help nobody?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zaroth 8y agoI guess you’re being downvoted because it’s not “tens of billions of dollars” at all! More like $574 billion dollars in FY2016. https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/total-medicaid-spending/ https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/total-medicaid-...
- JshWright 8y agoMedicaid is great[1], but it serves a relatively small fraction of the population. I assume the parent comment is referring to the fact that most other developed nations provide universal healthcare, at lower per capita cost, with better outcomes and doctor/patient satisfaction ratings. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx1-X9wpUk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx1-X9wpUk4
- mplewis 8y agoThey sure aren't helping everyone.
- horsecaptin 8y agoDidn't Shkreli make Daraprim available for free to anyone who couldn't afford it?
- ceejayoz 8y agoSuch "patient assistance programs" are common, and they're designed to further maximize profits at the expense of heightened insurance premiums over time.
- refurb 8y agoWhat? Giving away free drugs causes insurance premiums to rise? How does that work?
- namibj 8y agoThe money has to be made somewhere.
- ceejayoz 8y ago> What? Giving away free drugs causes insurance premiums to rise? How does that work? So, as an example, I'm on Stelara. It's $10,000/shot. Their patient assistance program will, without any consideration to income, pay up to $20,000/year of my copays/deductibles. Why? Because the marginal cost to them of producing the shot is probably $10, so by paying (for example) someone's $4k deductible (or even $13k, if I'm a family on a Bronze plan) they make the remaining $36k that year off insurance. That person might picked a cheaper option or not have taken the shots at all if they'd had to pay the $4k out-of-pocket. It feels awesome as a patient, but that's because I'm insulated from the enormous cost. Over time, though, it's pushing my premiums up, but in a way that's totally disconnected (from my perspective as the patient) to the pharma benefit I'm getting.
- refurb 8y agoThat’s different, that’s not free drug, that’s co-pay assistance. Drug companies do give free drug and that doesn’t cause insurance premiums to go up.
- shoo 8y agoIf you like pharma piracy, and dystopian science fiction, you may also like Annalee Newitz's novel _Autonomous_ https://www.torforgeblog.com/2017/11/15/read-the-first-four-chapters-of-autonomous-by-annalee-newitz/ https://www.torforgeblog.com/2017/11/15/read-the-first-four-...
- scythe 8y agoThe essential problem here seems to be that the FDA approval process for medicine laboratories is impractically severe and probably represents an instance of regulatory capture. While this is cool, it doesn't seem to generate attention in a way that could fix the underlying problem, except by dint of people who already know about it. Legislators are infamously subject to undue influence from medical companies that want to protect their oligopolies. A better hacking initiative might work to expose and excoriate those pharmaceutical and medical device companies which have abused the right to lobby in order to generate profits.
- eezurr 8y ago>Although the initial clinical results with cabotegravir were extremely promising, Four Thieves grew impatient with waiting for it to become commercially available. (The drug is currently undergoing Phase III FDA trials, which means it’s being clinically tested on a large cohort of human subjects.) >After Four Thieves synthesized cabotegravir, it was just a matter of convincing at-risk populations to use it. According to Laufer, some Four Thieves affiliates began partnering with heroin dealers to cut their product with the cabotegravir. I know nothing about chemistry/medicine, but this seems stupidly dangerous. There are good reasons to be patient and wait for drugs to go through the phase trials. It also seems stupidly dangerous to allow uneducated/untrained people to make their own drugs at home by following directions. What if they unknowingly miss a step? For instance, the article is stating that opioids are needed to create Naloxone. That would be a costly mistake to make. They should never release this particular recipe. These are truly brilliant people who probably have not spent a lot of time hanging around the average person. One reason governments and systems are in place is to prevent the non-well-rounded geniuses from giving an untrained mind an opportunity to make a devastating mistake. EDIT: This reminds me of the guy who attempted to develop a nuclear reactor in his parents shed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
- phyller 8y agoIt's ironic to me that some anti-control people that buck against the system don't seem to have a problem when it's them making decisions for others. Making the drug and trying it on yourself is one thing. Sharing it with someone else who understands you and how you made it is somewhat similar. Convincing random people who don't know you to take it is crossing some sort of line, and setting up a situation where people are taking your homemade version of a non approved medication without even knowing it is just plain wrong. I know they are already taking heroin, but these are still people and not your lab rats. You shouldn't be making their decisions for them about what goes in their body. In their do it yourself lab, what are they doing to remove stereoisomers?
- ethbro 8y agoTheir point that the paternalist-legal argument falls in the face of life-or-death circumstances has merit though. How many unprosecuted crimes have been allowed in the course of war? Because it "had to be done"? Prohibiting access to highly addictive narcotics? Makes some sense. Prohibiting personal access to whatever you want to put in your body otherwise? Not such a strong argument. If people want to risk killing themselves trying to cure their Hepatitis C infection, that's their business. In the same way we allow them to smoke, drink alcohol, drive vehicles, and own firearms.
- gnicholas 8y ago> At the pharmacy, a pair of single use Mylan epipens can cost over $600 and the company’s generic version costs $300 per pair, but an ongoing shortage means you probably can’t find them, even if you can afford them. This was true years ago but not anymore. CVS sells a generic epipen two-pack for $109 [1]. Still not cheap, but let’s not pretend that these cost $300 and are not even available. I wanted to like this article but when I read this it made me think either reading journalist didn’t check his facts or is more invested in the narrative than reality. 1: https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen-alternative https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen-alternative Edit: I posted this even though I figured it would attract downvotes. I’m curious if downvoters think my claims are untrue or don’t like the way I’ve phrased my comment. To me, an article I can’t trust is basically worthless, which is why I pointed these inaccurate facts out.
- thatcat 8y agoThe 109 price seems like the market responding to the 30 $ diy epipen hack released 2 years ago. https://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/10/01/hackers-provide-solution-to-overpriced-epipen-create-it-yourself-for-30-dollars/ https://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/10/01/hackers-prov...
- gnicholas 8y agoIt was definitely a response to the shortage and bad publicity around epipens. Not sure it’s possible to know which was the more direct cause. It could have just been CVS going for some good publicity.
- yosito 8y agoI met Michael at free software conference in Havana, Cuba in November. Didn't know who he was at first, after one of the talks he approached me and asked me if I wanted to get a beer. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well and turned him down. Later I saw him give a talk and realized he was the EpiPencil guy. He gave a great talk and I had the opportunity to have a few more conversations with him. He's obviously very intelligent. But he's also a deeply empathetic and passionate person who's giving his best effort to make the world a better place. Super inspiring!
- tfolbrecht 8y agoLove these guys, last press I saw on them was their OTS epipen, glad to hear they aren't defunct.
- anonu 8y agoThis sort of reminds me of the ability to 3D print guns. Technology gets cheaper and more efficient and ultimately democratizes access to "things"... Physical printed items, transportation, drugs... I think we're only scratching the surface here with this.
- peteretep 8y ago> These precursors are controlled by the federal government ... they’d make medicine from poison [by using the street drugs to get back to the precursors] cf: “A Simple and Convenient Synthesis of Pseudophedrine from N-Methylamphetamine” https://heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf https://heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf
- thx11389793 8y agois this actually a legit synthesis? as a non-chemist it has the air of plausibility, author names and quips aside.
- refurb 8y agoAs a former pharmaceutical chemist I’m calling bullshit. Could they have made a few grams of nalaxone? Sure it’s pretty simple. Did they make enough to make a difference? No. Did they make sufficiently pure drug so that people don’t get poisoned? Probably not. And did they make the AIDS drug? He’ll no. That synthesis is way more complicated than their mini lab can handle. It makes for good VICE articles, but these guys are amateurs who are likely going to get someone killed.
- vzcx 8y agoIs there some route to naloxone that I am not aware of that doesn't start from some opiate or opium alkaloid? The morphine total syntheses I've read were rather involved and low-yield. Perhaps progress made on the biosynthetic step through reticuline? That would be exciting.
- refurb 8y agoArticle covers that. They start with oxycodone. From that a reduction to hydromorphone and then methylation to nalaxone. Not easy chemistry, but only two steps.