Re: [DIYbio] Fwd: An intriguing example of working, medical DIYBio

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 5:57 PM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 12:23 AM, Michael Turner wrote:
>> > An intriguing example of DIYBio,
>>
>> Given that he's only taken over a med-tech/nurse job for himself, and
>> isn't doing any actual biology, the distinction "DIYmed" makes more
>> sense here.
>
> I don't see your point. Are you saying you are not interested in it
> because it can be given a more specific label?

I didn't say I wasn't interested. As for "more specific label", no, I
mean more appropriate label.

- Biology is a science.
- Biotech is an engineering discipline.
- The practice of medicine is neither, though uses results from both.

Psychiatry, for example, is a medical specialty. Would you say that
someone who is doing amateur psychoanalysis on his friends was doing
"DIYbio"?

>> Medical economics is strange, and can dramatically distort the markets
>> of services like dialysis, which costs about $77K per patient year in
>> the U.S., with about 1 patient in 10 dying anyway, annually.
>
> There seems to be a gap between those who make minimum wage working
> full time (and therefore do not qualify for medical assistance from
> the government, something about being above a minimum income), and
> those who have a higher salary or possibly insurance that can cover
> the procedure. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who knows
> anything about what people "in the gap" do. Do they just choose to
> drop dead ?? or does the government pay for anyone that asks for
> dialysis?

I think dialysis is rationed in the U.S. and has been for a long time.
I don't know how the patient's payments are calculated; I was only
referring to costs, which aren't the same thing. Since this guy is
supposedly doing his own dialysis, his "price" = his cost.

>> in purchasing power terms) from generally lower costs in China, it's
>> possible this guy has given the world a huge breakthrough.
>
> Nope, actually the first dialysis machine was a washing machine and
> some cans from a kitchen-- this guy is certainly not the first.
>
> "Dr. Willem Kolff, a Dutch physician, constructed the first working
> dialyzer in 1943 during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.[5] Due
> to the scarcity of available resources, Kolff had to improvise and
> build the initial machine using sausage casings, beverage cans, a
> washing machine, and various other items that were available at the
> time."

If I understand the NYT obit's use of the term "50 yards of sausage
casing", the resulting contraption hardly looks like something you
could put together out of a few kitchen appliances and bits of scrap.
It's frickin' enormous, for one thing.

http://postmanpatel.blogspot.jp/2009/02/inventor-of-kidney-dialysis-machine-in.html

Just because they improvised on some parts doesn't mean it wasn't a
significant engineering effort, well beyond the scope of what's
claimed in the South China Post article: "anybody with a high school
education."

>> (1) He'd was MISdiagnosed with total renal failure, and has failed to
>> kill himself with amateur treatment for a condition he actually
>> doesn't have.
>
> I don't see how misdiagnosis is relevant in this case. The article
> wasn't about "... and he's not dead yet, therefore the treatment must
> be working." Instead, it was about the fact that he even bothered, I
> think.

No, it claims more than that: that he was sick, that he "bothered,"
AND he succeeded.

Absent independent verification of the claim, this might only be more
of the kind of story that passes for hard news in the developing
world.

>> (2) He's a plucky (but not very ethical) entrepreneur, hoping to sell
>> millions of DIYalysis kits before the authorities take much notice, on
>> the strength of "See? I'm drinking my own Koolade!" pitch plus a lot
>> of free publicity from overcredulous Chinese journalists.
>
> Eh, maybe. But apparently people have been purchasing less and less
> home dialysis machines for years now. I don't see how this would
> trigger a reversion in this trend.

What trend? Not much of one.

"annual per-patient costs for home dialysis are about $20,000 lower
than for standard dialysis"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/28/us-home-dialysis-idUSTRE68R5TV20100928

$77,000 - $20,000 = a lot more money than most people have after
ordinary living expenses.

In my searches, the first article that turned up talking about how
home dialysis might be a bit cheaper dates from 1972, which might have
been around they started doing it. This isn't exactly Moore's
Law-level technology progress.

>> SEVERAL generations? They have VR projectors in their cellphones?
>
> what is a "VR projector"

VR=virtual reality.

Clearly, African mobile telephony is not "SEVERAL generations" ahead
of what's to be had in developed countries, as Yamashita claims. Most
of these online banking payments in African are probably done on
something capable of little more than texting and e-mail.

As I said: breathless hype.

Regards,
Michael Turner
Project Persephone
1-25-33 Takadanobaba
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
(+81) 90-5203-8682
turner@projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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