this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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Sharing because I found this very interesting.

The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has a DIY design for a home lab you can set up to reproduce expensive medication for dirt cheap, producing medication like that used to cure Hepatitis C, along with software they developed that can be used to create chemical compounds out of common household materials.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They have released a guide on making a CLR (basically several different pieces of lab equipment controlled to automate some of the process) and software to run on it to assist in the process of making the medications. Specifically to try and improve consistency of the medications produced.

It's a really great cause. Worth reading the article. If someone had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars cost to access life-saving medication, and they couldn't afford it, something like this could legitimately save their life.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago

And it's only made more inspiring by the fact that he has his own personal history with the pharmaceutical industry that didn't work for him.

I found another article on him and the collective, and there's this honestly saddening quote:

“A toast to the dead, for children with cancer and AIDS,” Laufer said, raising a glass of bourbon and quoting the hip hop artist Felipe Andres Coronel, better known as Immortal Technique. “A cure exists, and you probably could have been saved.”

It's even posted up on their page for the MicroLab right at the top.