Alzheimer's is so devastating that I can't blame people for being willing to give it a go even if it's an experimental treatment.

The government shouldn't be in the business of telling people what they can do, or have done, to their own bodies.

Government absolutely should tell people what they could do to some degree - vulnerable people are very prone to being scammed.

Alzheimer's is tricky. The person who is consenting to the procedure may not be the person in the OR. And both parties are vulnerable to scams and snake oil. This procedure needs studies, so there's a clear rate of success we can understand and communicate.

> The government shouldn't be in the business of telling people what they can do, or have done, to their own bodies.

But they absolutely should be in the business of licensing and controlling claims you make as a professional.

If you're someone who is performing this procedure and not making claims of medical benefits based on your license, I can see the arguments for allowing it. The flip side is you lose some of the legal protections you get as this is not a medically sanctioned procedure. Let the family sue you for the harm you may have caused and the department of justice arrest you for any lives that may be lost.

Unfortunately those devastating conditions are exactly where the grifters prey upon people. Some of the people pushing the treatments aren’t grifters in the traditional sense, but they are so invested in the idea of becoming famous for having cured a difficult disease that they lose objectivity and can’t admit when their treatment isn’t working.

There is a lot of history in this. Cancer and autism communities have fallen victim to these schemes as far back as those conditions have been recognized. Every year there is a new batch of researchers who claim they’ve found a cure but the government meanies are preventing them from curing the whole world. They generate a lot of false hope, take a lot of money from desperate patients, and then fade into obscurity after the communities realize nobody is actually getting cured by these treatments.

This happens in every condition where there is not yet a good medical treatment. Long COVID is a good example of a recent condition where hundreds of doctors have claimed to have invented new treatments. They generate a lot of headlines, collect a lot of money from desperate patients before everyone realizes the cure isn’t working, and then they abandon their cure like it never existed.

This is why governments regulate these things. If you assume all of the treatments might work, it seems cruel for governments to get in the way. If you look at the history of how this plays out, they almost never actually have any substance behind them. It’s almost 100% grift or researchers who can’t admit when they’re wrong.

The counterargument I heard recently is that what if doing something with your body ends up causing harm to others. E.g. you suddenly lose the ability to drive coherently. I agree everyone should do whatever they want, but if you drive drunk you're guilty because you should've known better, it's impossible to get a driver's license and not know you're not allowed to drive drunk. But if you do something experimental and are not aware you are no longer capable of driving, are you really at fault? And even if yes, is it that satisfying someone goes to jail considering maybe it would be better if a family of four in the other car is still alive.

Real life is more complicated.

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