Parasites

Not soon enough.

No

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.

The old forms of insulin (R, NPH) are already cheap and available at Walmart without a prescription. They are only $25 a vial, but suck to use though. Pretty sure they’re referring to the metabolic drugs given to people with type 2.

I didn't have a paywall for some reason, so here's the gist of it:

Insulin is only the first choice for type 1 diabetes. For type 2, there are alternatives (not just variants of insulin, but actually different drugs) with fewer side effects, and which are more effective against the serious dangers like heart attacks. But when insulin gets much cheaper, those patients (i.e. the majority of diabetes patients) could end up using insulin and run a higher risk of those more deadly symptoms. Towards the end, the article even says: "In place of capping the out-of-pocket cost of just insulin, lawmakers should cap the out-of-pocket cost of all diabetes medications."

“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.

Maybe that would motivate pharmaceutical companies to work on treatments that actually cure diabetes?

Seems like are breakthrough treatments we are getting over recent years is just to manage the sickness.

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)

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.

Yes! Without shared ownership over the companies we work at, we have no ownership over how our labor is used. This is why a worker owned economy is such a critical part of Marxism and why Social democracy's attempt to achieve socialist goals through higher taxes and labor rights isn't enough (a golden cage is still a cage.) The heart of socialism is giving people a shared ownership over their labor which means they get a voice and vote on how their labor will be used

I'd put money on the idea that this guy is a rich asshole and actively causing harm in the field that is his profession. https://www.theatlantic.com/author/michael-rose/

They've also already changed the headline, presumably because that didn't go so well. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/diabetes-medication-insulin-cost/671333/

Shhh, now come and sweep yourself under that nice little carpet.

I think the point is that insurances might not pay for the better options as willingly as they do now if there's a cheaper option. But I understand too little of the US healthcare system to be completely sure.

what if the writer was forced to write it to keep his job along with his family’s access to food, shelter, and healthcare?

You cant compare existential harm with a direct and tangible one. If the author is in dire straits and writing under duress, let him voice that in his own defense when he is called to account. But preemptively forgiving bad behavior on a remote "maybe" is a recipe for the end of civilization.

The author is a senior resident at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Writing isn't even his profession. He's a doctor.

Why not both?

Let's hold them all to account. Why should we give someone a pass just because they're not part of the c-suite?

The most significant insulin development in recent years is glucose reactive insulin.

I would argue that any development short of GRI is not significantly different than any other insulin treatment. You have to take insulin and either regulate how much insulin you take for how much sugar you consume, or regulate how much sugar you consume too match how much insulin you're taking.

The intervals/amounts differ, even methods of administration differ, but they are not drastically different.

GRIs actually regulate blood glucose "automatically" like a pancreas would. Which makes treating diabetes with a GRI, not dissimilar to treating any other condition that requires a single dose of medication every day. You take the medicine and go about your business, not giving your condition a second thought in your day to day activities. That's huge.

This is all well and good, however, GRIs are little more than a lab experiment at the moment. Human trials are set up begin in 2025 sometime.

So my point stands, make insulin cheap, let people live for a few more years until they can see the release of GRIs; where there is a real, tangible change in how they manage their condition.

Everything else, is just variations on the same, bad, theme.

My brother has used so many different brands and types of insulin, from long-acting to short, in vials, pen-like dispensers, and even a couple pumps.... They're all varying levels of bad. The least bad has been the pumps, but the pump isn't dependent on what brand or type of insulin you use.... It's a tool to make it easier to manage the amount of insulin being recieved at any given time. Everything else is little more than a difference in labeling.