
'Biohacker' Who Injected Himself with DIY Herpes Treatment Found Dead - jbryner
https://www.livescience.com/62449-aaron-traywick-death.html
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hprotagonist
Sounds like an accidental drowning to me.

The title seems misleading as a result, since one would think that he died as
a result of his unwise injection. On the other hand, that's what he's known
for, so it's not inaccurate either.

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dmschulman
Are you familiar with flotation tanks? They're pretty small and only hold a
few feet of water, just enough so you can float without touching the bottom of
the tank. The water is also incredibly salty, hence the "floatation" part of a
flotation tank.

Point being, it would be pretty hard to drown on your own accord in a
flotation tank. Perhaps he lost consciousness and drowned, but this would
indicate more about Traywick's current state of health than anything else.

~~~
zodPod
Going to sleep is a health problem now? He may have been tired and fell asleep
and in his tossing and turning managed to turn himself over and be face down
in the water. I'm not sure why people are acting like this is impossible. Is
there some measure to prevent this from happening in a float tank?

~~~
scottshamus
Your body has automatic reflexes to wake you up if you start to inhale water
or lack oxygen. If he didn't wake up, then there was probably some underlying
health issue that actually put him into an unconscious state.

~~~
hprotagonist
Or he was taking ketamine, or he was drunk, or any number of other things.

This is not uncommon:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/3yrulm/took_ketamine...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/3yrulm/took_ketamine_in_a_floating_tank_on_christmas/)

[https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/floatation-
tank...](https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/floatation-tank-
horror-4250837)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20533982](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20533982)

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klondike_
The whole 'biohacking' thing is a joke. Most of the stuff these people do is
downright stupid and often dangerous. I wish media outlets would stop
glorifying it.

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calebm
When I'm trying to hack a program/computer/whatever, I typically end up
breaking that thing multiple times before getting the desired effect. If that
thing were a human body, I could imagine it going badly. Sadly, you can't just
reboot it.

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foxyv
"According to the webiste News2Share.com, Traywick was found in a flotation
tank."

"The MDP is still investigating Traywick's death, though they note that at
this point, they have no evidence suggesting foul play."

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Esperaux
one less idiot selling poison to people

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

~~~
Esperaux
simply pointing out that the man was a complete hack and what he was selling
was pseudoscientific trash

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for violating the site guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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Semirhage
For his friends and family this is a tragic loss. For everyone else a...
“loss”... to the community of irresponsible self-promoters who take pointless
risks and denigrate the name of genuinely self-sacrificing experimenters.
Biohacking gives a bad name to medicine and hacking, and I wish the title
reflected that accurately. This was _not_ a “herpes treatment” or even an
experimental treatment; efficacy had not even been established in vitro.

