Re: [DIYbio] Re: Political work: DIYbio vs. "alternative 'medicine'"

A friend and I used to compete to find the most obscenely over the top claims from woo products on sale online.

She won with a website selling crystals thrice blessed by a druid under the full moon, aligned to the bio-energy-field and claiming to be able to cure brown recluse spider bites and to treat AIDS among other things for the low low price of something like 200 quid. 

Some of them make surprisingly concrete claims and target the most desperate people.

On a more serious note:

If you ever have someone in the family suffering from something incurable these scum circle like sharks.

There are websites that walk people through how to remortgage their house or fundraise hundreds of thousands of pounds to take their loved one to some [far off place] where [mysterious guy] has [amazing cure] which has been [rejected/suppressed/hidden/ignored] by [modern medecine/pharma/the establishment]. In practice they can end up in a clinic in china with some nutter drilling a hole in their head with a black and decker and pouring a beaker of stem cells in.(real case that happened to someone)

And there's always helpful people in your social circles who believe in the woo who'll, in good faith and thinking they're helping, try to convince the family members of the sick person to some magic man they've heard of who they've heard can help.

Magic men, homeopaths, snake oil salesmen, they're the vultures who prey on the weak, the desperate, the dying.
They are the lowest of the low.
Psychopaths who'll smile in peoples faces while stripping the dying of their assets in exchange for false promises of a cure or treatment.

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 5:09 PM, Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:

Actually, I think selling someone crystals to put on their head to make them feel better is fraud, and should be prosecuted.

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On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 11:11 PM, Winnie Poncelet <winniep...@gmail.com> wrote:

People need to become more literate in biology to combat this type of thing and that's what we as biohackers should do. I am convinced this helps a lot of people and inspires kids to get into science, which is probably the most important thing.

However you should also be aware there is a fine line to walk. At some points, e.g. curing most diseases, science has merit and should not be replaced by these alternative techniques. But at other points, e.g. if someone is in good health and believes putting crystals on their head is a way to feel even better, by forcing science upon them they likely won't feel any better. 

The problem lies not in which side is right or wrong, but rather when alternative techniques are used where it makes no sense or when science is forced when it doesn't have the lead role.

On Thursday, February 11, 2016 at 2:39:57 PM UTC+1, Open BioLab Graz wrote:

I guess most of us are aware, that "alternative medicine" aka esoteric bullshit is a plague that influences many peoples lifes in a negative way and spreads a false view of chemistry, medicine, molecular biology - mostly in the name of making cash.

So how do you react when you're confronted with esoteric stuff, especially when it sells itself under the pretext of science? Is it our mission as a movement to fight against such lies actively?
Or do you think that biohackers should be passive and just focus on their stuff?

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