Thursday, November 19, 2009
Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, is an autoimmune disease. Without injected insulin, people who have diabetes cannot survive. Insulin was invented in 1928 changing our lives from a death sentence to someone living with diabetes. It is a little mind numbing to think ...
This is exactly why the entire health care system including the insurance industry and drug companies for profit need to be abolished. Since the invention of insulin 83 years ago nothing has changed in Type 1 Diabetic treatment. We are all stuck in a bad sequel of Matrix and laying in a incubator somewhere while the drug companies do just enough to keep us alive to keep milking money from us. The decision to develop a cure to Type 1 diabetes hinges entirely on how much of a profit can be made which makes the drug companies and their CEO's trade men, women and children's lives for cash. The are the bottom feeders of the bottom feeders and lack any sign of humanity.
How about we just count the endless billions they have made over the past 83 years and we call it even. I wonder what truly worries them more, "breaking even" on the development of a cure or loosing an ever increasing cash flow along with market share and those obscene salaries. Until Diabetics wake up and take the green pill we will continue to fund the most unconscionable industry ever conceived of.... life and death for profit.
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But how would abolishing the insurance industry and pharma improve anything?
Just 40 years ago, people were expected to die from complications of diabetes. In the 70's, I had a neighbor who was blind and passed away at 52 from diabetes complications. Today, the statistics are very different. We HAVE the opportunity to live long full lives and die from complications of old age if we can manage our diabetes well, because of the investment in understanding bettering diabetes control.
The process to a cure is complicated, not because of financial gains and losses, but by the fact that type 1 is a disease that is many different issues. They don’t have all the pieces of the genetic puzzle yet and with each step the researchers take, they find out more information that may be a better opportunity for us. I’m not interested in a rush to a cure for the sake of a cure. I’m not worried about how much the return is to the investors. I’m interested in what will give all of us who live with diabetes the quality of life we are looking for.
<!--EndFragment-->The insurance company makes money by limiting or denying your claim, raising maximum out of pocket costs yearly and dictating what meds you will take. The Drug Companies make money by advertising false claims (Phizer) and producing more drugs with no cure. Doesn't sound to me like either one is interesting in improving anything but their bottom line.
Dead diabetics don't buy insulin but the longer you can keep them alive (you call improve the quality of living) the more profit the drug company's make. I am quickly closing in on 40,000 injections and that doesn't include testing. I inject insulin 4 times a day, test at least 4 times a day, have eye exams once a year, four diabetic exams/consultations with my doctor a year. These are the same things I was doing in 1982 when I got the disease. I think the reason people live longer or don't have very little to do with meds and more to do with exercise, diet and glucose level, again nothing has changed.
I don't doubt the solution is complicated but I could give you countless other medical problems and diseases that cures were developed but only if the money was right. I don't agree that just developing a different kind of Band Aid improves my quality of life. Our Insurance industry and Pharmaceutical companies are only going to keep developing different kinds of Band Aids because that's what makes them money. Until people like you and me start screaming and pointing out the truth, band aids are all we're going to get. I hope 83 years from now we have more then a smaller meter and 4 new kinds of insulin.