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Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

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Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#121

Post by pimeys »

giles7777 wrote: post #111
myelin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type 1 diabetic here. Managing T1D even with the "Gucci" insulins (I use Novolog and have tried Fiasp) is still a huge pain in the butt; you have to give yourself a dose of insulin a fairly precise amount of time before eating, and accurately judge how much you're going to need, which is half science and half wild guesswork. My per-meal dosage requirements vary randomly from month to month -- a dose that would be fin…

Have you tried low-carb eating? I've been doing it for years and it seems to be an easier method then insulin(type2 borderline when I started, so not exactly the same).

When you eat lots of fat and protein as a T1, you just get a slowly rising glucose that needs insulin and is harder to control compared to carbs with less fat.

T1 is really complex even with a low carb diet, if you don't only eat vegetables, but meatier food.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#122

Post by arcticbull »

nceqs3 wrote: post #85
a3n wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call your congresscritter. Sorry, but regular people don't make "campaign contributions" of any noticable size, so all we get back is a form letter acknowledgement based on whatever box you checked for subject. Big Pharma, Big X and Big Y, on the other hand, "donate" enough "campaign contributions" that the campaigner can all but ensure (re) election based on recent name recognition to get the nomination, then coun…

Factually incorrect comment. Corporations cannot make campaign contributions.

Luckily people can, and corporations are people. That is to say, corporations can donate to PACs and PACs can donate to candidates.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#123

Post by roywiggins »

nceqs3 wrote: post #85
a3n wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call your congresscritter. Sorry, but regular people don't make "campaign contributions" of any noticable size, so all we get back is a form letter acknowledgement based on whatever box you checked for subject. Big Pharma, Big X and Big Y, on the other hand, "donate" enough "campaign contributions" that the campaigner can all but ensure (re) election based on recent name recognition to get the nomination, then coun…

Factually incorrect comment. Corporations cannot make campaign contributions.

Sure, they make donations to super PACs, which ""don't coordinate""[0][1][2][3] with campaigns.

[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-and-democratic-polit...

[1] https://www.rollcall.com/2019/06/06/what-is-mcconnelling-how...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/10-ways...

[3] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-politics-superpacs-impa...

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#124

Post by cestith »

hooande wrote: post #15
sparrish wrote: post #8

This is bogus. Wal-mart sells insulin for $24.88 a vial without prescription currently. It's only the newer 'guchi' insulin brands that are crazy expensive. Stuff from 1996 that is compared to in this article is actually cheaper than it was in 1996 (adjusted for inflation).

this is very true. prices of name brand insulin need to come down, but there is a low cost option available for those that need it

Patient outcomes for the insulin aspart pens and the vials of generic insulin at Walmart are so different that many doctors refuse to prescribe the cheap stuff except as a very last resort.

There's no simply substituting. These are two different brands of a generic statin pill or something. Although it's all insulin, these are very different drugs. The dosages for the same insulin in the same patient can vary, and the calculations or charts for what to take when vary across types of insulins. The handling instructions vary. There's different patient training for a pen vs. a vial and syringe.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#125

Post by RHSeeger »

HideousKojima wrote: post #115
RHSeeger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s fast acting, and varies in how it reacts in the body. I believe they offer R (short acting / 2-5h), N (medium), and L (long acting / 24h). The problem with the older insulins isn't so much that they're faster, it's that they're less "specific" (from my experience). A newer short acting insulin (Apidpra, etc) has a spike in the 15-30 minute range and the spike is steep and the tail (while up to 5 hours) is low.…

If that's actually the case that puts all the "You're literally killing us with expensive insulin prices" people in a very negative light. At best they're ill-informed, at worst they're being intentionally deceptive to achieve political aims.

What you've said is true. Refusing to use the older insulins is what is killing people. Having to use the older insulins is shitty, and it shouldn't be happening, but it's not the thing that's killing people.

However, actually _saying_ that tends to get people up in arms, harassing you about how it how it shouldn't be necessary for people to use the older insulins, and how the newer insulins shouldn't cost what they do. Even though everyone actually agrees with them and they're arguing against a point that nobody it actually trying to make. It is... frustrating trying to get people to understand that you agree with them, but you're talking about something different.

I had this exact discussion with one such person yesterday, and I was trying to explain that they are sabotaging their own goals by misrepresenting the issues. And that I WANT them to succeed in changing things, but they're making it harder to do so.

Edit: You're already being downvoted for stating something that is obviously and undeniably true, because people are not bothering to understand what you're saying. I'm sorry for that.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#126

Post by luffapi »

wwweston wrote: post #86
birdyrooster wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Found your problem: "African American adults are 60 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes by a physician." Given that the middle class is very white and employed with insurance coverage, it virtually doesn't affect white people. Our politics takes black people's votes for granted and don't do anything for them.

There's people in at least one party who talk about problems like this, and given that party is the only one that has taken any kind of health care policy seriously for longer than the lifetime of this forum, and has at least some modest achievement to show for it during the narrow window they've had essential control of national institutions, there's reason to take that at face value. And while various poll access r…

Are you talking about the Democratic Party? They are more responsible for the extreme cost of healthcare in the US than any other political faction. Mandatory insurance, COBRA payouts… Did you know Gretchen Whitmer’s dad was the CEO of BlueCross?

I say this as a leftist: the Democratic Party is the party of the health industrial complex.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/01/joe-biden-public-option-h...

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#127

Post by kadoban »

nceqs3 wrote: post #85
a3n wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call your congresscritter. Sorry, but regular people don't make "campaign contributions" of any noticable size, so all we get back is a form letter acknowledgement based on whatever box you checked for subject. Big Pharma, Big X and Big Y, on the other hand, "donate" enough "campaign contributions" that the campaigner can all but ensure (re) election based on recent name recognition to get the nomination, then coun…

Factually incorrect comment. Corporations cannot make campaign contributions.

Are you sure? Pretty sure they can. Either way they can donate huge amounts to PACs, create their own PACs, run ads, etc. Bribery is pretty much legalised, it's ridiculous. See Citizens United v. FEC for example.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#128

Post by KoftaBob »

api wrote: post #46
HarryHirsch wrote: post #9

Insulin is a solved problem, in first-world countries the sale price is fixed and there's public healthcare. But in America you are supposed to take "personal responsibility" for your own health and biohack your way ouf of type 1 diabetes?! Srsly? This s a political, not a scientific problem. Call your congresscritter.

The US health care system combines everything bad about government-run health care (slow progress due to heavy regulation, layers of bureaucracy, government-enforced drug monopolies) with everything bad about free-enterprise health care (inequality, market price fixing, uneven quality, lots of quackery at the edges of regulation). We need to pick something. If we're going the free enterprise way we need competition,…

Finally someone has put into words my frustration with this healthcare system.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#129

Post by oceanplexian »

a3n wrote: post #79
HarryHirsch wrote: post #9

Insulin is a solved problem, in first-world countries the sale price is fixed and there's public healthcare. But in America you are supposed to take "personal responsibility" for your own health and biohack your way ouf of type 1 diabetes?! Srsly? This s a political, not a scientific problem. Call your congresscritter.

> Call your congresscritter. Sorry, but regular people don't make "campaign contributions" of any noticable size, so all we get back is a form letter acknowledgement based on whatever box you checked for subject. Big Pharma, Big X and Big Y, on the other hand, "donate" enough "campaign contributions" that the campaigner can all but ensure (re) election based on recent name recognition to get the nomination, then coun…

Respectfully disagree. I live in a smaller US state and I’ve emailed my representatives and received a personal reply from both of them. One actually engaged and we politely discussed a public policy issue back and forth in an email thread. More often than not you can walk right into their office and meet them if you’d like.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#130

Post by [deleted] »

arwineap wrote: post #93
RHSeeger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s fast acting, and varies in how it reacts in the body. I believe they offer R (short acting / 2-5h), N (medium), and L (long acting / 24h). The problem with the older insulins isn't so much that they're faster, it's that they're less "specific" (from my experience). A newer short acting insulin (Apidpra, etc) has a spike in the 15-30 minute range and the spike is steep and the tail (while up to 5 hours) is low.…

That's context I've never gotten before. Obviously there's a nice convenience benefit built into this product that a company has created, they should get to charge some markup for that. I wonder how different the production costs are though, my understanding is the costs to consumer are greater than 10x

[deleted]
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