welcome to hell!! welcome to hell!!
this was initially going in the tags but im actually way too mad to leave it there.
i have two main issues with this using an antipsychotic to start. like its a dystopian hell product no matter what meds, but it is really important that they picked an antipsychotic to start.
one is that its just another example in a slurry of bullshit where healthcare providers and people in general dont trust psychotics with our own autonomy. its not up to us whether the side effects are too much or if the meds dont work. no one listens because our symptoms are scary or whatever. and this is just another “compliance” monitor (because asking me if i took my meds or not is physically impossible or i’ll lie or whatever)
and two is that this kind of a system is going to exacerbate the shit out of certain symptoms, like, oh i dunno, paranoia???? the feeling that someone is monitoring what you do?? the very valid and not-at-all-a-symptom feeling that you are not allowed to make decisions about your health without fear of being forced into a hospital?? but if you bring up any of these fears to your doctor while they try to switch you to this system its another sign that youre too paranoid and symptomatic to be trusted without it (or institutionalization).
it was not an accident that they started this on antipsychotics.
holy shit
They’re selling it like it’s some kind of thing that’s supposed to ‘help’ patients ‘remember’ to take their drugs. I’m sorry but there’s already a plethora of pill dispensers and the like that do exactly that and don’t prevent the patient from tossing the pill in the trash.
This is absolutely designed from the ground-up to undermine the bodily autonomy of mental patients.
This is also targeted, specifically, at mental patients who aren’t being legally denied their right to refuse medical treatment. People who are being given involuntary medication in an outpatient setting currently either have a hostile family member or a nurse administer their drugs, often in the form of a long-acting intramuscular injection. It’s just hard to sell an injection to family members and other ‘concerned’ people in the
patient’svictim’s life.This drug is targeted towards psychotic and bipolar patients who have every right to refuse treatment but who don’t feel they can safely refuse ‘help’ because of the threat of escalating violence from the psychiatrist or because they are being abused at home from family members.
Believe me, the pressure you feel to be a ‘good patient’ when you’re diagnosed with a ‘major mental illness’ because of the threat of institutionalization or forced drugging is huge.
Anyway… from reading briefly about how the system is supposed to work I do have hope that it’ll be easily circumvented by people who are being victimized by it. All it seems to be is a simple battery that works off of stomach acid connected to a radio transmitter whose signal is picked up by a receiver worn on the chest. I seriously doubt there’s any kind of handshake going on or even a serial number being transmitted given the fact that the pill is going to suffer intense power constraints. A dummy radio transmitter in your pocket could probably do an excellent job.
Actually, dropping the pill in a glass of hydrochloric acid and holding the solution up against the sensor for a couple of seconds would probably work just as well.
I’d love to get my hands on a bottle of this stuff to test for ways to spoof it but I know the drug is going to be hideously expensive.
First Digital Pill Approved to Worries About Biomedical ‘Big Brother’
QueerAnarchism 