Insulin: Rejected by the Republicans, Needed by Millions

 

Approximately 7 million Americans manage their diabetes through daily injections of insulin.  In the interest of honesty, I must state that a member of my family was insulin dependent from the age of three.  She took from two to three injections a day.  Contrary to what many people assume—that diabetes is a simply managed disease—it is, in fact, a killer.  The person to whom I refer died far too young, after losing her eyesight and both legs to diabetes.  Insulin does not solve the problem; it contains the problem. 

            We owe the Canadians the credit for insulin.  Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard McLeod were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 for the discovery of insulin.  They then sold the patent for it to the University of Toronto for the princely sum of $3. 

            We have gone from those three bucks to 14% of insulin users having to use 40% of after food and housing income on this life-giving medicine.  How?  Why?

            Insulin is produced in the pancreas and helps the body break down glucose.  In people with type 1 diabetes, the beta cells in the pancreas have been destroyed, the body produces no insulin, and they need injections of artificial insulin to stay alive.  Those with type 2 diabetes do produce insulin but their bodies do not respond well to it.  These people do not necessarily need insulin injections, but some do.  Insulin was once made from animals but is now artificially produced.  It is one of the few medicines that cannot be taken orally but is most efficient and effective when infected into the fatty, subcutaneous tissue of the body.  The upper thigh and stomach are favored positions because the diabetic can easily inject themselves into those areas. 

            The leading producers of insulin are Eli Lilly in the U.S., Sanofi in France and Novo Nordisk is Denmark.  These producers keep insisting that their costs of production have gone down, but the price of insulin keeps going up.  Sanofi and Novo Nordisk frankly blame the complex marketing in the United States.  That, then, leads us to the recent legislation passed by the Senate with a 50-50 vote, the prevailing vote then being cast by the Vice President. 

            That legislation originally contained a measure to have a cap of $35/month placed on the cost of insulin for Medicare patients (not everyone, mind you, just Medicare patients).  Not only have the Republicans in Congress rejected this plan, they branded it as socialist.  Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said “Today it’s the government fixing the price on insulin.  What’s next, gas? Food?”  Well, now that would be a horror, never mind that the 7 million people who need insulin cannot affect the price of insulin in the same way the 330 million people in the U.S. can influence, through the open market, the cost of food and gas, but I guess economics is not Ms Rodgers long suite. 

            Senators Boozman and Cotton from Arkansas, Senators Lankford and Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Senators Blackburn and Hagerty of Tennessee are all Republicans and they all voted against capping the cost of insulin.  Their votes are remarkable because they represent the states with the highest mortality rates from diabetes.  Could it be that they don’t feel they represent the people who are dying?  Or are they simply following the party line of “don’t give the Democrats a win this close to the mid-term elections.”  The Republican party used to stand for something better than winning and losing.  Now it is just a score card for them, and for what possible reason?  Evidently not making life a little less difficult for people with a killing disease. 

            Thank God for good health, thank the Canadians for insulin, and keep the faith.