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The Hollow Men of Hims

(www.alexkesin.com)
208 points quadrin | 2 comments | 25 Jun 25 22:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.625s | source
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yold__ ◴[26 Jun 25 00:11 UTC] No.44383020[source]▶
Semaglutide / GLP-1 compounding is not limited to just Hims. Lot's of pharmacies do it. The manufacturer (Novo Nordisk) charges 5x-10x for the exact same thing. The author calls the GLP-1s used in compounding "Chinese Knockoffs", but offers no evidence of quality control problems, and is instead relying on the reader's prejudices.

GLP-1 drugs may be a game-changer for obesity and diabetes, the same way that cholesterol (statin) drugs have greatly improved heart health. Hopefully reversing a long trend of increasing waistbands in developed / developing countries. Unfortunately, America will pay the highest price (including Medicare). I'm all for anything that makes them cheaper, including the many compounding pharmacies currently exploiting the loophole the author takes issue with.

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827a ◴[26 Jun 25 02:00 UTC] No.44383584[source]▶
Agreed. The number of times the article specifically calls out "shady Chinese knockoffs" is honestly, actually, racism. If there's evidence that Hims' drugs are harmful: Present it. The article doesn't. I know tons of people who have used Hims and companies like it, for a variety of things. I'm aware of no specific or general problems anyone has had with their medication.
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throw10920 ◴[26 Jun 25 21:58 UTC] No.44391900[source]▶
> The number of times the article specifically calls out "shady Chinese knockoffs" is honestly, actually, racism.

Factually incorrect. A country is not a race. You cannot be racist against a country, by definition, and China in particular has a very well-documented pattern of making low-quality clones of products from other countries (often using IP stolen from those countries), so the concern is well-justified.

More generally, the use of "racism" as a response to well-justified concerns about products of a country is completely irredeemable. It's logically invalid, emotionally manipulative, breaks the HN guidelines, is blatantly anti-intellectual, and is mostly used as a propaganda technique by state actors. Please keep this drivel off of platforms like HN that are designed for intellectual curiosity.

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1. eurleif ◴[26 Jun 25 22:05 UTC] No.44391950[source]▶
It's interesting to consider why criticisms of China in particular are often interpreted as racism. No one makes the same accusation if you criticize America. Part of the explanation may be that China is much more ethnically homogenous: Han Chinese are 92% of the population. It seems that in the name of opposing racism, people are effectively rewarding China for being an ethnostate.
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2. throw10920 ◴[26 Jun 25 22:16 UTC] No.44392024[source]▶
> It seems that in the name of opposing racism, people are effectively rewarding China for being an ethnostate.

My understanding of criticism of China (in particular - although I have also seen this effect with many other countries) being interpreted as racism is very different than the explanation that you provided, but that's too long to get into. Meanwhile, this is an extremely interesting second-order effect that you pointed out that I hadn't realized before. Thank you for pointing this out!