For the biohackers, decentralization is a feature, not a bug. It\u2019s a safeguard against corruption. \u201cThe biohacking community,\u201d Fabrizio \u201cFab\u201d Mancini, a chiropractor and frequent flier of the daytime TV medical circuit, tells me, \u201cis not owned by any one entity. It\u2019s actual individuals.\u201d In a community for whom deregulation is entirely the point, though, how do you screen for bullshit?<\/p>\n
I ask Asprey about the vetting process for the slew of vendors and speakers hawking treatments on his trade show floor, many of them expensive, few FDA-approved. \u201cI don\u2019t look at anything as being fringe,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s either known or unknown, and it has evidence or it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the last day of the conference, I attend a talk on snake venom. A man named Sincere Seven is extolling the medicinal virtues of microdosing viper, cobra, and rattlesnake venoms directly into his patients\u2019 bloodstream.<\/p>\n
Flowpresso\u00a0lymphatic drainage technology.<\/p>\n
Photograph: Will Bahr<\/p>\n
\u201cThe snake heals its prey before it kills its prey,\u201d he claims, before personifying the serpent. \u201cI inject venom into you that will induce a rapid healing. Flood the body with white blood cells, kill off viruses, kill off bacteria, kill off tumors, kill off cancers\u2014cause I don\u2019t wanna eat that.\u201d (Trace amounts of venoms are currently used<\/a> in FDA-approved drugs and have been found to be effective in stroke treatment.<\/a>) Seven is asked by an audience member if snake venom could be used to treat autism. While he hadn\u2019t personally tested it yet, Seven stresses, \u201cI\u2019m willing to work with anybody … Me and my colleagues, we are the clinical trials.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, my gosh,\u201d a woman breathes in the audience. Whether she is moved or horrified, I can\u2019t tell.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, I get it. It\u2019s not fair to say that I hate my body, exactly\u2014the thing certainly has its merits, and what\u2019s more, biohackers talk constantly of the power of positive language in manifesting your reality\u2014but we\u2019ve never really hit it off. One of my earliest memories involves my parents calling 911 when I had breathing trouble, the paramedics looming over me so tall I swear they scraped the ceiling. In college I was walloped with Lyme disease, my wrists frozen stiff one morning to the point that I couldn\u2019t open my dorm room door. I\u2019ve broken several bones, had a (non-cancerous) lesion removed from my scalp, passed a kidney stone. I have insomnia and depression and a perpetually swollen ankle. I\u2019ve had Covid at least five times. As of this writing, I\u2019m days away from an appointment with my dermatologist, who\u2019ll carve a portion from my back to determine whether or not I have skin cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the biohackers, decentralization is a feature, not a bug. It\u2019s a safeguard against corruption. \u201cThe biohacking community,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[210,1142,1060,1184,1595,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-13426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-medication","11":"tag-medicine","12":"tag-startups","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114743885454377147","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}