Via Zoom – RSVP Here
The Quello Center 2024-2025 speaking series is co-hosted by the Information Policy Workshop and presents works-in-progress on topics covered by the Information Policy Book Series of The MIT Press. The series is co-organized by Sandra Braman and Keith Hampton. Proposals for presentations (and for books!) are welcome; please contact Sandra at bramansa@msu.edu if you are interested.
All talks will be recorded and will be available to those who have registered. For a copy of the recording, please reach out to Ashley Wilson at wils1620@msu.edu
On a planet of waste, where whole populations and regions are written off as externalities, the notion of a public universal health care system is as anachronistic as alchemy. The sick are left to invent their own cures and self-medicate with chemicals siphoned off from global supply chains. A band of medicine hackers are showing the way. The datafication of medical research and the outsourcing of pharmaceutical production create opportunities for those in-the-know. Under the name “Four Thieves Vinegar Collective”, the hackers apply the dictum “information wants to be free” to the field of medicine and health. A hint of the political explosiveness of this vision is the group’s work to circumvent restrictions on abortion rights, for instance, by spreading information on how to source the active ingredient, misoprostol, in states that have banned chemical abortion. Needless to say, there are issues with risk mitigation, validation of information, and quality control of the supply chain. Medicine hackers and single-issue grassroots organizations (on reproductive rights, harm reduction, etc.) are stepping in to establish “best practices” and trustworthy sources for self-medication. The risk profile is acceptable for that segment of the population that has been shut out from the health care system.
Johan Söderberg is professor in Theory of Science at the department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, Göteborg University, Sweden. He is an associate editor of Science Culture. Recently he published together with Maxigas Resistance to the Current: Dialectics of Hacking (MIT Press, 2022).