> "Tristan Roberts is completely within his rights according to the FDA and the rule of law in this nation… to self-experiment on himself in any way that he deems medically appropriate. It is his body and it is his right."
Any doctor or scientist making it possible for him to do so, however, is very much NOT within their rights and shall be keelhauled for a year. And that's if it goes well. If it goes wrong ...
(unless there is explicit permission from the ethical board of a hospital)
> Another thing that concerned scientists about Ascendance was the lack of detailed information on the company's website - there's no phone number, nor a list of employees or advisors. Traywick said this is in part due to proprietary reasons and in part because the company is still so young. But he also said he needs to obscure the identities of the working scientists who are biohacking for Ascendance on the side, to avoid opening them up to legal or reputational risk.
Heh ... you mean reputational risk because they're experimenting on humans ? Yeah, there's government institutions that take a really dim view of such practices.
The thing is, even if those humans "know" what they're doing (we're talking about a 28 year old programmer. I don't feel like I'm going out on a limb when saying his knowledge of HIV is less than complete). Besides, it's not like even perfect knowledge of all HIV research would enable one to predict the outcome of this experiment with sufficient certainty.
So there is no informed consent here. This is experimenting on humans. That he's "paid" for it (in maybe getting cured, not quite in money) doesn't change that fact.
I think yours is a good analysis. I think that there are ethical frameworks that can be used to support what the subject of this article has done to himself. The main ethical problem is that of the people who are providing the untested therapy to this person, outside of the established norms, putting the subject at risk while attempting to use the subject's autonomy as their shield.
Right; quacks were the norm until the medical profession organized.
Its fair to argue that the AMA etc have overstepped, are protectionist etc. But we surely don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. We want to hold medical practitioners to some standard. Which probably excludes preying on vulnerable people for naieve experimentation?
Any doctor or scientist making it possible for him to do so, however, is very much NOT within their rights and shall be keelhauled for a year. And that's if it goes well. If it goes wrong ...
(unless there is explicit permission from the ethical board of a hospital)
> Another thing that concerned scientists about Ascendance was the lack of detailed information on the company's website - there's no phone number, nor a list of employees or advisors. Traywick said this is in part due to proprietary reasons and in part because the company is still so young. But he also said he needs to obscure the identities of the working scientists who are biohacking for Ascendance on the side, to avoid opening them up to legal or reputational risk.
Heh ... you mean reputational risk because they're experimenting on humans ? Yeah, there's government institutions that take a really dim view of such practices.
The thing is, even if those humans "know" what they're doing (we're talking about a 28 year old programmer. I don't feel like I'm going out on a limb when saying his knowledge of HIV is less than complete). Besides, it's not like even perfect knowledge of all HIV research would enable one to predict the outcome of this experiment with sufficient certainty.
So there is no informed consent here. This is experimenting on humans. That he's "paid" for it (in maybe getting cured, not quite in money) doesn't change that fact.