Here, “biocertified” refers to the way life itself is administratively verified, classified, and permitted to circulate under capitalism, especially through health, disability, insurance, and welfare systems.

What they mean by biocertified in this context:

1. Life must be proven to count

Under contemporary capitalism, people are only entitled to care, resources, or protection if their bodies and conditions are recognized and certified by institutions (doctors, insurers, the state). Illness, disability, risk, or even death must be legible to bureaucracy.

You are not sick, disabled, or vulnerable in a political sense unless you are documented as such.

2. Health as an administrative category

“Biocertification” names the process by which biological life is:

• diagnosed

• coded

• documented

• audited

This turns health into something managed and rationed, not collectively guaranteed. ICD codes, disability determinations, insurance eligibility, vaccine cards, work clearances—all are examples of biocertification.

3. Inclusion through exclusion

Only those who can be biocertified are eligible for support. This produces:

• exclusion of undocumented, misdiagnosed, or noncompliant people

• pressure to perform illness “correctly”

• punishment for those whose conditions don’t fit institutional categories

Biocertification is therefore a technology of control, not care.

4. Pandemic logic

COVID made this especially visible:

• essential vs nonessential workers

• risk stratification

• immunity passports

• acceptable levels of death

Life was valued based on its certified economic and biological usefulness, not on collective responsibility.

5. Why they critique it

Adler-Bolton and Vierkant argue that biocertification:

• individualizes health problems

• obscures structural causes (capitalism, labor, housing, racism)

• replaces solidarity with compliance

Against this, health communism argues for unconditional, collective care, where survival does not depend on proving one’s biological legitimacy.

In short

In Health Communism, “biocertified” means life that has been officially validated by medical and state systems in order to deserve care, protection, or resources—a process they see as central to capitalist control over bodies.

If you want, I can also pull a specific passage and unpack their language line by line, or contrast this with Foucault’s biopolitics and disability studies.