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.
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.
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.
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".
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?
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]
its kind of wild your trying to create sides in this fake debate and then somehow trying to side with repairing electronics over peoples health?
why though lol, do you hate sick people? or just have no empathy for people in general?
who cares about technicality and semantics and whois using whos catch phrase better... we should be discussing an issue far more important, like so much more important its funny to even compare. then being able to switch your iphone battery out.
I have no idea why you take any of that away from what I wrote. I am in favor of both repairing electronics and people's health. I'm just saying that the right-to-repair framing for medical stuff is not a great way to look at it.
What illnesses can you treat over the counter? I can’t think of a single intervention other than symptom mitigations, many of which aren’t particularly effective compared to generally safe prescription medications at even that. The only thing I can think of are bandaids and wound dressings.
Is this some sort of definition game? I'm using illness to mean "an unhealthy condition of body or mind", and treat as "to do something to improve the condition of an ill or injured person", both dictionary definitions. If you really can't think of anything that drug stores sell without prescription that qualifies, maybe try taking a stroll down the aisles sometime.
I’m saying it doesn’t map to “right to repair.” A mild anti inflammatory medicine to relieve mild headaches - ok great. But that’s not a repair of any sort. An antibiotic cures an actual illness - something that requires repair.
As I said pretty clearly I’m not saying this is right for the individual of the world, but a right to repair yourself would allow open access to medication at the lowest prices an open market can bear and medical knowledge offered a broadly accessible way for most conditions not absolutely requiring a specialist, like most surgeries or complex interventions. The amount residual is probably a lot larger than you would believe. In fact almost all medical services are routine and don’t require a specialist of any sort, not even a PA. Again, I’m framing the concept of right to repair your own body not taking a stance on whether it’s a good idea or not.
Id note in closing that in a discussion of the definition of right to repair, it’s an odd question to pose “is this a definition game?” Yes - that is the topic!
You are making up your own definition for "illness" here, so you can cherry-pick.
The whole notion of "repair" in relation to bodies doesn't make much sense. Bodies self-repair. All medicine is just aiding them in that.
And if you're not saying this is right for the individual or the world, I don't understand why either of us should waste further time on what appears to be just a game, the part of "definition game" you somehow managed to ignore even while quoting it.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
