6 ms·

Healthcare in the US is terrible, sure. And making medicine more accessible is a great thing. But I feel like the term "right to repair" is being hijacked here.

Healthcare in the US is terrible, sure. And making medicine more accessible is a great thing. But I feel like the term "right to repair" is being hijacked here. A manufacturer that creates a piece of technology can theoretically publish repair instructions and provide parts (at a reasonable cost). This is different than the issue of accessibility in the drug space? Maybe I'm making a fuss over nothing, but it just stood out to me.

jstanley 2y ago
Why is it different?
- MobiusHorizons 2y ago
  Who is the manufacturer of the item to be repaired? How is the manufacturer preventing repair? What design decisions artificially limit repair to parties other than the manufacturer? How does the manufacturer use existing regulation (eg DMCA or copyright) to prevent repair or access to information necessary for repair. All of these questions make sense for right to repair, and are mostly nonsensical in this case, since drug companies don’t manufacture bodies.
  - fnordpiglet 2y ago
    Essentially the instructions and tools to repair your own body are restricted and only accessible to those who can afford to pay for the health care systems processes. Have an obvious infection? Spend a ton of money going to a doctor to get a prescription to give to a pharmacy to dispense at highly marked up substance that’s easy to manufacturer at a tiny unit cost. You had no right to cure your own infection. You had to pay dozens of middle men for something straight forward. I’d note that in most of the world you would just go buy the antibiotics directly from a pharmacy for almost nothing. Now - I’m not saying self medicating with antibiotics is either good for you or the world, I’m saying at least in the US, you don’t have that right.
    - mnau 2y ago
      Please stop trying to co-opt established term for your pet cause.
    - MobiusHorizons 2y ago
      Believe me, I agree that this is a problem. I have lived in other countries, and have seen how broken certain aspects of US healthcare are especially with regards to cost. These problems are just totally different than “right to repair” if in no other way than that the legal solutions would be completely different. For example any right to repair legislation would have no bearing on drug prices.
      - grayhatter 2y ago
        If it was easier to get the federal approval required to produce medications wouldn't that lower the cost of producing those medications?
    - wpietri 2y ago
      That's some very careful cherry picking you've done there with your example. Maybe next time you're in a pharmacy you'll take a look at the aisles and aisles of over-the-counter medicines and devices available and do some thinking about your belief that "instructions and tools to repair your own body are restricted and only accessible to those who can afford to pay for the health care systems processes".
      - grayhatter 2y ago
        I don't understand what you're trying to say, because there are low potency options that are available over the counter, that means the most effective treatments are correctly access restricted? Can you name an over the counter antibiotic that successfully treats a staph infection? or strep throat? or sinus infection?
        wpietri 2y ago
        I am saying his cherry-picking of antibiotics specifically while he make dramatic claims is ignoring all of the over-the-counter mediation sold in the pharmacy. There are quite a lot of illnesses one can treat without ever talking to a doctor. I don't know what other people's ratios are, but my use of OTC medication and "tools" is maybe 10x more frequent than stuff that's gatekept by a doctor. He is also ignoring the reasons that we have ended up with this system. Some of them are kind of dumb, but some of them are about valid problems. That's very different than what "right to repair" is fighting, which is mostly about exploitative companies trying to maximize revenue at the expense of their customers. [Edit: misunderstood who replied; correcting pronouns]
  - grayhatter 2y ago
    > Who is the manufacturer of the item to be repaired? This isn't important to the point, but for the sake of argument; lets say society is the manufacturer. > How is the manufacturer preventing repair? Local legal regulatory groups that deem some method of fixing (treating) some defect (health condition) too dangerous to allow. > What design decisions artificially limit repair to parties other than the manufacturer? Company (local agency) wont allow my neighborhood repair shop to buy (or make) replacement screens (medications) or batteries (contact lenses). > How does the manufacturer use existing regulation (eg DMCA or copyright) to prevent repair or access to information necessary for repair. Existing is a stretch considering the age of the DMCA. But drug scheduling in the US is an equivalent and equally nonsensical application of logic for example. > All of these questions make sense for right to repair, I know how to fix it, but because of laws and regulations and decisions outside my control, I'm unable to apply that knowledge. > and are mostly nonsensical in this case, since drug companies don’t manufacture bodies. The DMCA is your own example, and it's a law built and advocated to enable control, and reduce supply artificially. There's definitely a point to be made and a discussion to be had about the origins for control over health and medical issues. I think permitting the sale of snake oil is harmful to society, and we should prevent it so people don't have to become experts in human biology to not get conned. But treating chronic health conditions shouldn't be as hard as it is. The core of right to repair, is you shouldn't be allowed to prevent me from, or make it and possibly difficult for me to improve something I own and control. I think saying I own and control my body and health is a fair assertion, so the same argument applies; it's wrong to make accessing repair options for my health as hard as it is if I'm willing to try to fix it. I'd say the same concepts behind right to repair apply more so to the body because I can't just replace it.
  - samtho 2y ago
    In some ways, the gatekeeping of healthcare should be met with more resistance than repair an item that someone else made but you now own. Your body is something that belongs to you, you technically manufacture, yet you are legally forbidden from applying known and often the most effective remedies to your own body if you don’t engage with a giant government-sanctioned system that can charge you whatever they want. To top it all off, the rules are not even consistent and are motivated by reasons other than what is best for the patient. For example, taking more than the maximum dose of Tylenol at can cause long-term or permanent liver damage. This is still available over the counter with no restrictions whatsoever. On the other side, we can see that the DEA was created to enforce drug policy (or rather racism and classism via drug policy) which has the effect of making access difficult for many people who are prescribed scheduled substances. Yet we have a opiate crisis that managed to appear within this draconian regulatory environment. Then we have situations like the FDA which been aware of the dangers of high sugar in diets, but the sugar industry’s dollars into “studies” managed to convince them that “dietary fat” is the problem. The “for your own good” argument only works if they actually acted for our best interests, but time and time again, it’s shown to us that this is just a big game in which we have no say in, yet we are all subjected to. We should have the right, as an informed human, to independently decide what we want to do to or put into our body, just as we should have the right to choose what we wish to do with our possessions.
    - mnau 2y ago
      > In some ways, the gatekeeping of healthcare should be met with more resistance than repair an item that someone else made but you now own. That is never the case. Humans are very risk averse and risk of broken product is infinitely smaller than risk of screwing up with your health. That's how we ended up with the straightjacket system. Rachet goes only one way, there is a crisis (e.g. thalidomide in 70s, snake oil salesmen and so on), we rachet it up to ensure confidence. The consequences of a single case of problem have a decade long consequences. E.g. baby formula was contamined in China (wiki "2008 Chinese milk scandal"), 300k were sick, six children died. Baby formula is not trusted even a decade and half later and imported stuff is used.
MobiusHorizons 2y ago
I agree this is a totally different thing. It definitely feels like they are trying to make use of the feelings people have about the right to repair movement for their own agenda. Some might say co-opt, others riff off of. I can see that there are some similarities, but power struggle and regulatory situations are totally different.
kevmo 2y ago
If you just make a post about healthcare in the USA being awful, it's highly likely to be removed/booted off the front page. Call it a "right to repair", though, and you're hitting the sweet spot for HN.
AlbertCory 2y ago
Exactly. They've taken a popular term and applied it where it doesn't fit. You may have a "right to repair" something you bought. You didn't buy your body. Drug safety is an old, old issue. We can argue about how it's applied without dragging in popular phrases that don't apply.
- pennybanks 2y ago
  i mean we could. but it seems like you wouldnt want that since your brining it up yourself. seems very like a very easy thing to ignore since it doesnt seem any malicious. unless there are trademarks im not aware of.
- partomniscient 2y ago
  >You didn't buy your body. So what? You're still responsible for it - its nourishment and maintenance. I agree 'right to repair' seems a little off, but its a subset of 'right of self-determination', i.e. basic liberty, which from the outside looking in is preached about a lot but not very practiced in the US.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jstanley 2y ago

Why is it different?

MobiusHorizons 2y ago
Who is the manufacturer of the item to be repaired? How is the manufacturer preventing repair? What design decisions artificially limit repair to parties other than the manufacturer? How does the manufacturer use existing regulation (eg DMCA or copyright) to prevent repair or access to information necessary for repair. All of these questions make sense for right to repair, and are mostly nonsensical in this case, since drug companies don’t manufacture bodies.
- fnordpiglet 2y ago
  Essentially the instructions and tools to repair your own body are restricted and only accessible to those who can afford to pay for the health care systems processes. Have an obvious infection? Spend a ton of money going to a doctor to get a prescription to give to a pharmacy to dispense at highly marked up substance that’s easy to manufacturer at a tiny unit cost. You had no right to cure your own infection. You had to pay dozens of middle men for something straight forward. I’d note that in most of the world you would just go buy the antibiotics directly from a pharmacy for almost nothing. Now - I’m not saying self medicating with antibiotics is either good for you or the world, I’m saying at least in the US, you don’t have that right.
  - mnau 2y ago
    Please stop trying to co-opt established term for your pet cause.
  - MobiusHorizons 2y ago
    Believe me, I agree that this is a problem. I have lived in other countries, and have seen how broken certain aspects of US healthcare are especially with regards to cost. These problems are just totally different than “right to repair” if in no other way than that the legal solutions would be completely different. For example any right to repair legislation would have no bearing on drug prices.
    - grayhatter 2y ago
      If it was easier to get the federal approval required to produce medications wouldn't that lower the cost of producing those medications?
  - wpietri 2y ago
    That's some very careful cherry picking you've done there with your example. Maybe next time you're in a pharmacy you'll take a look at the aisles and aisles of over-the-counter medicines and devices available and do some thinking about your belief that "instructions and tools to repair your own body are restricted and only accessible to those who can afford to pay for the health care systems processes".
    - grayhatter 2y ago
      I don't understand what you're trying to say, because there are low potency options that are available over the counter, that means the most effective treatments are correctly access restricted? Can you name an over the counter antibiotic that successfully treats a staph infection? or strep throat? or sinus infection?
      - wpietri 2y ago
        I am saying his cherry-picking of antibiotics specifically while he make dramatic claims is ignoring all of the over-the-counter mediation sold in the pharmacy. There are quite a lot of illnesses one can treat without ever talking to a doctor. I don't know what other people's ratios are, but my use of OTC medication and "tools" is maybe 10x more frequent than stuff that's gatekept by a doctor. He is also ignoring the reasons that we have ended up with this system. Some of them are kind of dumb, but some of them are about valid problems. That's very different than what "right to repair" is fighting, which is mostly about exploitative companies trying to maximize revenue at the expense of their customers. [Edit: misunderstood who replied; correcting pronouns]
- grayhatter 2y ago
  > Who is the manufacturer of the item to be repaired? This isn't important to the point, but for the sake of argument; lets say society is the manufacturer. > How is the manufacturer preventing repair? Local legal regulatory groups that deem some method of fixing (treating) some defect (health condition) too dangerous to allow. > What design decisions artificially limit repair to parties other than the manufacturer? Company (local agency) wont allow my neighborhood repair shop to buy (or make) replacement screens (medications) or batteries (contact lenses). > How does the manufacturer use existing regulation (eg DMCA or copyright) to prevent repair or access to information necessary for repair. Existing is a stretch considering the age of the DMCA. But drug scheduling in the US is an equivalent and equally nonsensical application of logic for example. > All of these questions make sense for right to repair, I know how to fix it, but because of laws and regulations and decisions outside my control, I'm unable to apply that knowledge. > and are mostly nonsensical in this case, since drug companies don’t manufacture bodies. The DMCA is your own example, and it's a law built and advocated to enable control, and reduce supply artificially. There's definitely a point to be made and a discussion to be had about the origins for control over health and medical issues. I think permitting the sale of snake oil is harmful to society, and we should prevent it so people don't have to become experts in human biology to not get conned. But treating chronic health conditions shouldn't be as hard as it is. The core of right to repair, is you shouldn't be allowed to prevent me from, or make it and possibly difficult for me to improve something I own and control. I think saying I own and control my body and health is a fair assertion, so the same argument applies; it's wrong to make accessing repair options for my health as hard as it is if I'm willing to try to fix it. I'd say the same concepts behind right to repair apply more so to the body because I can't just replace it.
- samtho 2y ago
  In some ways, the gatekeeping of healthcare should be met with more resistance than repair an item that someone else made but you now own. Your body is something that belongs to you, you technically manufacture, yet you are legally forbidden from applying known and often the most effective remedies to your own body if you don’t engage with a giant government-sanctioned system that can charge you whatever they want. To top it all off, the rules are not even consistent and are motivated by reasons other than what is best for the patient. For example, taking more than the maximum dose of Tylenol at can cause long-term or permanent liver damage. This is still available over the counter with no restrictions whatsoever. On the other side, we can see that the DEA was created to enforce drug policy (or rather racism and classism via drug policy) which has the effect of making access difficult for many people who are prescribed scheduled substances. Yet we have a opiate crisis that managed to appear within this draconian regulatory environment. Then we have situations like the FDA which been aware of the dangers of high sugar in diets, but the sugar industry’s dollars into “studies” managed to convince them that “dietary fat” is the problem. The “for your own good” argument only works if they actually acted for our best interests, but time and time again, it’s shown to us that this is just a big game in which we have no say in, yet we are all subjected to. We should have the right, as an informed human, to independently decide what we want to do to or put into our body, just as we should have the right to choose what we wish to do with our possessions.
  - mnau 2y ago
    > In some ways, the gatekeeping of healthcare should be met with more resistance than repair an item that someone else made but you now own. That is never the case. Humans are very risk averse and risk of broken product is infinitely smaller than risk of screwing up with your health. That's how we ended up with the straightjacket system. Rachet goes only one way, there is a crisis (e.g. thalidomide in 70s, snake oil salesmen and so on), we rachet it up to ensure confidence. The consequences of a single case of problem have a decade long consequences. E.g. baby formula was contamined in China (wiki "2008 Chinese milk scandal"), 300k were sick, six children died. Baby formula is not trusted even a decade and half later and imported stuff is used.

MobiusHorizons 2y ago

I agree this is a totally different thing. It definitely feels like they are trying to make use of the feelings people have about the right to repair movement for their own agenda. Some might say co-opt, others riff off of. I can see that there are some similarities, but power struggle and regulatory situations are totally different.

kevmo 2y ago

If you just make a post about healthcare in the USA being awful, it's highly likely to be removed/booted off the front page. Call it a "right to repair", though, and you're hitting the sweet spot for HN.

AlbertCory 2y ago

Exactly. They've taken a popular term and applied it where it doesn't fit. You may have a "right to repair" something you bought. You didn't buy your body. Drug safety is an old, old issue. We can argue about how it's applied without dragging in popular phrases that don't apply.

pennybanks 2y ago
i mean we could. but it seems like you wouldnt want that since your brining it up yourself. seems very like a very easy thing to ignore since it doesnt seem any malicious. unless there are trademarks im not aware of.
partomniscient 2y ago
>You didn't buy your body. So what? You're still responsible for it - its nourishment and maintenance. I agree 'right to repair' seems a little off, but its a subset of 'right of self-determination', i.e. basic liberty, which from the outside looking in is preached about a lot but not very practiced in the US.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]