The Blaisdell Blog

  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 i

  People who read my editorials or know me personally know that my background is in science and economics.   I like data the way some people like chocolate.   Those same people know that I was a life-long Republican who left the party when they nominated Trump.   They know I am pro-life, though I believe that Roe v Wade should be upheld because I am not arrogant enough to think that my moral standards must be universally correct.   They also know that I voted for Greg Abbott twice.   What they may not know is that I am now Abbott’s biggest problem.   That is heady talk for a seventy-five-year-old woman with no power base, so let me explain.               Abbott’s lead over challenger Beto O’Rourke has narrowed to six points.   That is less than the margin that led to George Bush’s victory over Ann Richards in 1994.   But that is just one of the numbers that I am looking at.   Here are a few others.             We are currently spending $3 billion (No, I am still not comfortab