While Dr. Kristin Comella who once injected stem cells into her vagina is going after the US government‘s regulatory body – the FDA, the State of California is going after Dr. Josiah Zayner, a former NASA scientist who once spliced himself with a jellyfish’s DNA so as to glow in the dark, did a fecal transplant on himself to hack his gut bacteria, and injected himself with CRISPR to gain more muscle mass.

Zayner recently received a letter dated May 8th, from the California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) informing him that they have been reviewing a complaint of ‘unlicensed practice of medicine’ against him, and as such, he was requested to appear before them for an “interview” on June the 11th.

Zayner, who has never referred to himself as a medical practitioner let alone practice medicine, and never experimented on others except himself, was understandably shocked, and immediately took to social media:

“I have been accused of practicing medicine without a license because of genetic self-experimentation and showing people how to access publicly available knowledge!” posted Zayner on his social media.

The complaint was filed last year and it appears as though they are also going after Zayner for aiding and abetting unlicensed activity.

Even though anyone can file a complaint with the DCA, complaints get addressed based on the threat to the public. When a complaint is deemed a threat to public safety, an investigation begins. This appears to be the case with Zayner. But what the specifics of the complaint are, and on what merit is it deemed a threat to public safety, the DCA refuses to comment. What is known is this: in California, practicing medicine without license carries up to 3 years jail time and a $10,000 fine.

The State of California is notorious for abusing personal liberty in the name of “progressive” values, and so they might also have nothing on Zayner and this is bait, in the hope that he shows up without legal counsel and possibly incriminates himself.

Stanford Law professor Hank Greely, a long time critic of Zayner – albeit a more constructive and rational critic compared to other knee-jerk institutional academics who criticize Zayner, also questioned the basis of the investigation, but said nonetheless, the DCA might indeed have a case against Zayner:

“Got to say, Josiah, I probably wouldn’t spend resources investigating you for self-experimentation to the extent you weren’t acting on, or giving medical advice to other people. But they might have a case against you,” Greely told Zayner.

Zayner has publicly stated that he is done with self-experimentation. The only self-experiment he recently expressed interest in is using gene therapy to get a ‘Runner’s High’ without exercising. And apart from advocating for access to biotechnology for everyone and offering online bioengineering courses, he has never offered medical treatments or cures. On the contrary, while he has been supportive or neutral when it comes to self-experimentation that involves bio-enhancement, he has been very critical of biohackers offering treatments and cures.

When the now defunct biohacking company known as ‘Ascendance Biomedical’ first tested a Gene Therapy cure for HIV on patient zero Tristan Roberts, Zayner was vocal against the whole experiment and its safety, despite its noble intentions. And when another biohacker associated with Ascendance ingested a virus in an attempt to treat lactose intolerance, Zayner was the only notable voice in the biohacking community against the treatment and the dangerous precedent it set. His criticism angered the then gatekeepers of the biohacking community.

And when Ascendance’s late CEO Aaron Traywick took off his pants in front of an audience at a biohacking convention so as to inject inject himself with what he claimed was a “nanobot” cure for herpes, Zayner spoke out strongly against the stunt and even almost expressed regret for his infamous CRISPR injection – reflecting that it had likely opened a both a Pandora’s Box, and a biohacking arm’s race where biohackers were trying to one up each other.

One can see why the basis of the investigation is questionable especially given that Zayner’s entire biohacking philosophy has basically been, ‘go all in and explore biotechnology to the fullest, except when it comes to offering treatments and cures.’ And he says the reason he has adamantly stayed away from offering treatments is that he knew it would lead to something like his present predicament:

“The truth is that I have never given anyone anything to inject or use, never sold any material meant to treat a disease and never claimed to provide treatments or cures because I knew this day would come.”

Despite constantly receiving many messages from people all over the world begging him to help them with their ailments either because there are no cures, or their access to treatment is limited, or mainstream research is too slow, Zayner’s ONLY known foray into the medical – and treatments in general, is being highly critical of the medical system; which ties into his broader vision of access to biotechnology and the groundbreaking treatments biotechnology would offer. And following this thread, Zayner tied the DCA’s investigation to the inadequacy of the entire system he has been campaigning against, stating:

“The fucked up part is that so many people are dying not because of me but because the FDA and government refuses to allow people access to cutting edge treatments or in some cases even basic healthcare. Yet I am the one threatened with jail.”

With never-ending vicious patent battles over biotechnologies like CRISPR, and many powers and interests rapidly monopolizing and patenting every aspect of such biotechnologies, Zayner as a well known public figure who is always advocating for the democratization of biotechnology through biohacking, clearly emerges as a threat and disruptor to this scramble for the monopolization of biotechnology. His “biotech for all” advocacy must be pissing off a lot of said powers and interests, and as such there are those who will want him to be stopped, or at least discouraged.

But it would appear Zayner’s advocacy which demystifies and normalizes biotech for the layperson hasn’t just pissed off those in government and corporate interests, but also even some in mainstream media. At one point, Zayner even tried to set up a website for biohackers to counter the negative narratives that mainstream was generating in regards to biohacking.

This subtle hostility towards Zayner from mainstream media was exemplified when yesterday MIT Tech Review reported about Zayner’s letter from the authorities after he posted it on his social media. MIT Tech Review chose to portray him as a clout chaser who lives only for the limelight, and knows how to “play the game.” Anyone who has actually been closely following Zayner’s work and journey knows there’s a bigger picture and a higher goal to the popularity he has garnered, and even in instances he has admitted to publicity stunts, there was a method to the madness as the stunts had more to with bio-activism and the broader vision of normalizing and democratizing biotechnology for the masses.

Zayner’s fight to give everyone access to biotechnology is really what has put him at odds with the authorities. At one time the German government demanded that Zayner give them the names of biohackers in Germany who bought the CRISPR kits his company ‘The Odin’ sells. He refused, and the German government proceeded to ban his CRISPR kits in Germany. And then in the US, the FDA warned him against selling bioengineering kits for brewing glow-in-the-dark beer, after which they sent a stern warning to biohackers that selling DIY gene therapy kits intended for self-administration was illegal.

So given his history with authorities, Josiah Zayner is fully aware that he is being monitored, and has turned most of his attention away from self-experimentation and genetic engineering, and more towards teaching and cheese-making, and says he treads carefully because he knows they are coming for him:

“I try to keep myself mostly clean, because I know they are coming for me.”

The once stunt biohacker turned zen cheese-maker concluded his social media rant by pointing to the actual injustice in the current American medical system that is responsible for putting millions of lives at risk:

“How many years behind bars should politicians need to spend for all the people who have died because they were denied access to proper medical care? Yet they come after me.”