What’s worse - taking diabetes medication that’s somewhat outdated, or taking no diabetes medication at all?
I’m not a doctor, but I bet I know the answer.
Also most of those newer treatments treat either type 2 (diet / metabolism related) or are an adjunct therapy for a type 1 (genetic) who has also developed insulin resistance over time. With or without insulin resistance a type 1 isn’t making any insulin in their pancreas at ALL and is going to need to take manufactured insulin, whether by a syringe or with an artificial pancreas that needs to be filled with an insulin cartridge. For them a metabolism altering medication isn’t going to make their pancreas start producing insulin again, it’s just going to help their cells respond better to the insulin they still have to inject.
People have gotten so used to conceptualizing diabetes as a “fat people” disease that they completely ignore the type 1 genetic diabetics who are actually the main users of insulin. Oh and most children with diabetes have type 1 (since it’s genetic) vs type 2 which can be managed with the fancier newer drugs is the “fat people” / diet related type, and most people don’t get that until they’re at least middle aged and have been eating garbage for decades. When people talk about insulin they act like they’re talking about adults who made a choice when most of your exclusively insulin dependent diabetics are gonna be type 1s who got it from genetics and have had it since childhood.
We should absolutely be caring about people regardless of these moralistic fat shaming arguments but the kind of people saying it’s not a big deal that a month of insulin costs $500 are also usually the same people crying “think of the children!” and the raw hypocrisy of that just drives me fucking bonkers.
YoU jUsT hAvE To WaTcH yOuR DiEt
-them probably
yOu juSt hAve To cuT swEetS, maYBe tRY tHe CArniVorE DieT
- them actually
Other times they’ll just advise you to use honey, because they think that’s not sugar.
The title of the article is clickbait/ragebait. The actual article content is a little different. The gist of it is more so this:
In place of capping the out-of-pocket cost of just insulin, lawmakers should cap the out-of-pocket cost of all diabetes medications.
Headline writters are often/usually different people than the person who wrote the article leading to infuriating things like this
Yeah well in this case it basically means that the headline is absolute bullshit. It might as well have said something about puppies.
News organizations should be held to higher standards here, and be honest ffs
Whatever the reason for the amateur bullshit, it’s amateur bullshit on the part of the atlantic, which is the actual headline here.
I hope these motherfuckers and their apologists die.
Luigi doing it! And now u can do…
Is that Tony Hawk why does that look like Tony Hawk
No lmfao that’s Tim Robinson 😂😂😂😂
Too soon?
No
Not soon enough.
So you offer the newer, better treatments for free, right? Right???
That’s the neat part, you don’t.
Except if diabetics had cheap safe access to insulin none of them would die…………
The point it seems like they are trying to make (and I have only read up till the paywall) is that there are multiple forms of insulin, and newer versions basically work better. Many people are getting the newer, better drugs, but having to ration them because of how expensive they are. If plain, old insulin becomes cheap enough such that people switch to it (critically, without some extra effort by our healthcare system), a percentage of people will end up dying. Managing diabetes is all about keeping blood glucose stable, and that is asier to do with the modern stuff.
They retitled the article to “Making Insulin Cheaper Isn’t Enough”, which i think is a much better headline.
And again, I could only read up till the paywall, so i could be giving them too much credit.
The fact they changed the headline is itself praiseworthy, but the fact it was click bait and sensationalist to begin counters it.
The point about making the older stuff cheaper is something that isn’t mentioned as much as it should be in these debates.
Ultimately even if the older stuff is worse and requires more attention and monitoring (less convenient), it is still better than nothing.
Someone posted a link to the full text. Looks like their main point is that for most people with diabetes (who have type 2), insulin of any form isn’t the best first line treatment, things like glp-1 receptor agonists (e.g., ozempic) work way better, but since it’s not “insulin” it’s not covered.
I’m guessing the editors of the Atlantic gave it the original bad headline, cause it seems like the author is genuine.
So the physician cares about patient wellbeing while the newspaper cares about engagement? Sounds about right
“Making Insulin Cheaper Isn’t Enough” sounds like a good headline on its own, but with the context of the original headline and tagline, it sure sounds like the rest of the article is going to be making point for not making insulin cheaper at all.
Maybe there is a real call to action buried past the paywall, but I don’t see it, and therefore I can only assume that what I can see without paying is the message they want to push.
Someone posted a link to the full text. Looks like their main point is that for most people with diabetes (who have type 2), insulin of any form isn’t the best first line treatment, things like glp-1 receptor agonists (e.g., ozempic) work way better, but since it’s not “insulin” it’s not covered.
I’m guessing the editors of the Atlantic gave it the original bad headline, cause it seems like the author is genuine.
That makes more sense, I suppose.
Still seems like an odd article choice since type 1 and 2 diabetes are totally separate diseases with different causes and treatments. So of course reducing insulin prices won’t do anything to help type 2 diabetics.
No. Idiot. Only the capitalist class can construct hypothetical scenarios.
Hmm, who is this Rose fellow?
Michael Rose is a senior resident in internal medicine and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The only person The Atlantic could find to peddle this shit isn’t even allowed to practice medicine without supervision? lmao
Not even an endocrine doctor. IM knows diabetic medicine because they happen to run into it a fair amount, along with a lot of other diseases from a lot of other body systems like kidney disease or COPD, but they’re not nephrologists or pulmonologists either.
credit to michael rose, they want all diabetes medications to be cheaper or free.
That’s fair! It’s entirely possible they got rolled by The Atlantic and didn’t know what the editors were going to do to the piece. But like, at the same time maybe question why a national publication would need someone who isn’t able to practice on their own to do an opinion piece about something highly politicized… (them before they agreed to write the piece I mean, if that wasn’t clear)
If diabetics get insulin for free they’d become dependent and require it for the rest of their lives. It’s safer to just let them die or leave them homeless because they have to spend all their money on it.
/s
Any society which holds “your money or your life” as a valid argument is not one which should exist.
Cheaper medicine?
But at what cost???
This only makes sense if the new treatments are cheaper or free than insulin. Which I’d bet a body part they aren’t.
take so hot
hot hot take
take so hot you fry an eggMichael Rose
Guys, very seriously after the whole covid scam, do you still believe in this kind of stuff? The covid was biggest wealth-transfer to rich class in whole history.