I apologize if this sounds pedantic, but what if the writer was forced to write it to keep his job along with his family's access to food, shelter, and healthcare? So rather than punch down, I say punch up. I say fuck the owners who ultimately signed off on the article and potentially demanded it in the first place. (The Atlantic is owned by Emerson Collective which is owned by billionaire Laurene Jobs. )

This was not written by some reach asshole. This was written by someone on the payroll of some rich asshole.

A lot of type two patients need to manage their diets better. You wouldn't believe the number of people who just keep eating like shit.

for whom diabetes isn't the best option and who make up the ...

I guess you meant to say "insulin is not the best option"? Because diabetes seems like a shit option all around.

Better than having nothing which is the current situation.

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

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.

Luigi doing it! And now u can do…

That's the neat part, you don't.

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.

Ozempic is expensive af. Even more so than insulin.