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Insulin (mander.xyz)
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[-] Wild_Mastic@lemmy.world 209 points 6 months ago

Meanwhile, 10 euros per vial here in Europe. At least his original plan for widespread and easy availability has partially succeeded.

[-] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 143 points 6 months ago

In civilized countries at least.

[-] ChilledPeppers@lemmy.dbzer0.com 76 points 6 months ago

In brazil 36 reais (about 6 euro). The US is a joke. (And im 99% sure you can also get it for free if you use the public health network)

[-] mika_mika@lemmy.world 49 points 6 months ago

I have mental health disabilities in the USA and my meds are at zero cost because I literally have had absolute zero income for the past 5 years.

You wouldn't believe how much those mood stabilizer/antidepressant cocktails stack up proportionally when I was able to scrape by on $15 an hour.

The system set me up to fail with how shitty it is, if healthcare wasn't crap I could be contributing to society without crippling myself.

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[-] BootLoop@sh.itjust.works 139 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Canadians: invented drug and patent it freely

Americans: Finds way to kill the most people possible while making the most amount of money

[-] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 62 points 6 months ago

To be fair, the killing isn't the point; they're the product. Its just that profit is God, so killing in its name is justified.

Killing poors for the joy of it? That's just an evil bonus.

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[-] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 128 points 6 months ago

I’m not diabetic and the situation with insulin fills me with a white hot rage.

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[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 72 points 6 months ago

Remember Remember the 4th of December

[-] volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz 41 points 6 months ago

Making an AI meme of Luigi as a Saint is one thing.

Making a painting and having it casually displayed in your room is a whole other level.

Also, I can't believe it's already been a year.

[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 50 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yea I guess but my mom was destroyed by our cruel and heartless system. She’s gone now but painting this helped me reconnect with the glimmer of hope we all felt for a moment after this happened. It also helped process the trauma I myself went through as her caregiver not being able to access what she needed

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[-] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 69 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I wonder if all the sane Americans did a mass exodus to Canada, Europe, UK, Australia etc, what effect that would have

[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 97 points 6 months ago

A lot of us would need financial sponsorship. So there'd be a literal financial drain on those economies.

I still would like to sign up.

[-] Soup@lemmy.world 73 points 6 months ago

Not if you stayed, then it’s an investment. Money doesn’t just disappear when goes to poor people, they use it to buy things like food and stuff. It would only be a financial drain if you were sending that money back home.

The North American mind cannot comprehend the benefits of supporting the poor.

[-] slothrop@lemmy.ca 36 points 6 months ago

UBI should be ubiquitous.

UBI = Universal Basic Income

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[-] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Perhaps strain would be a better word than drain - it would still be a short-mid term financial burden to take even a tiny fraction of the sane population from the US, it's a big country. Sure would be nice if it could be arranged though...

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[-] pennomi@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago

Have you looked into what it takes to get a permanent visa to one of those countries? It’s not easy.

[-] Master@sh.itjust.works 22 points 6 months ago

Its prohibitively impossible.

[-] fossilesque@mander.xyz 15 points 6 months ago

I did it a while ago, would recommend.

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[-] macncheese@lemmy.world 64 points 6 months ago

California is contracting its own insulin supply and it'll be available for $11 a pen starting Jan 1, 2026. I know not every state can or are willing to do this but just throwing out some examples and hopefully optimism to somehow fight the American decline from within it. We're in a unique position as our state economy is larger than most countries but I am hopeful we will throw our weight around to counter the bs. https://www.chhs.ca.gov/blog/2025/10/17/governor-newsom-announces-affordable-calrx-insulin-11-a-pen-will-soon-be-available-for-purchase/

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 24 points 6 months ago

Seems like something other states should get in on. Now that the program is established seems like it would not be as hard to pay into it and get a share of the product.

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[-] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 48 points 6 months ago

I genuinely think that in some third world countries, as part of the middle class, you can have a better life than in the USA.

[-] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 26 points 6 months ago

Something I've noticed is when untraveled people in the USA try to contextualize themselves with other countries they pick the worst examples they can think of. Favelas in Brazil or slums in South Africa for example. We do this to the point where our entire conception of countries (or in the case of Africa, continents) is the worst imagery we can think of. I think they genuinely don't believe that, for all their troubles India, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, etc also have smartphones and big buildings and libraries and universities and laboratories, and educated people living decent lives.

They also can't see how the overcrowded jails full of pretrial prisoners, the barefoot children carrying buckets for water in Appalachia, the rundown schools full of illiterate kids, the impunity of rich private interests, the corrupt sheriffs and judges, and on and on, puts us in the company of the "third world countries". Yes we have nice places too, but SO DO THEY. A broken society in the 21st century isn't people living in mud huts, it's children shitting in the street next to a glass skyscraper with LEED Platinum certification.

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[-] Zerush@lemmy.ml 23 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Logically, it's not about how much money you make, it's about purchasing power. It is irrelevant if you earn only $400 a month when you can eat well for $1 and pay $100 for your housing, you have free health care and education. That is the reality in some third world countries.

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[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 42 points 6 months ago

Americans suffer from Stockholm syndrome

[-] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Reminder that the term Stockholm Syndrome was coined to blame victims for being rightly more afraid of the police than their captors:

In [Jess Hill's] 2019 treatise on domestic violence See What You Made Me Do, Australian journalist Jess Hill described the syndrome as a "dubious pathology with no diagnostic criteria", and stated that it is "riddled with misogyny and founded on a lie"; she also noted that a 2008 literature review revealed "most diagnoses [of Stockholm syndrome] are made by the media, not by psychologists or psychiatrists." In particular, Hill's analysis revealed that Stockholm authorities, responded to the robbery in a way that put the hostages at greater risk from the police than from their captors (hostage Kristin Enmark, who during the siege was granted a telephone call with Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, reported that Palme told her that the government would not negotiate with criminals); as well, she observed that Bejerot's diagnosis of Enmark was made without ever having spoken to her.

Otherwise, we probably agree that AmeriKKKans are a feckless, servile people.

[-] fossilesque@mander.xyz 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Mod note: Do not make personal attacks towards this user, lest I have to slap more knuckles with a ruler. You can engage with the critique respectfully, or it's 📏 time.

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[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 42 points 6 months ago

Naive question from a european: Aren't there companies on the market who can offer a cheaper price and therefore beat greedy competitors?

[-] fullsquare@awful.systems 107 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

the problem is that there is natural (as in, unmodified) cheap generic insulin available, it's just that it sucks compared to everything else. you see, insulin is a peptide that is supposed to appear, do some signalling, then disappear and unmodified insulin copies this thing exactly. the problem is, most of the time when peptide is supposed to work as a pharmaceutical, you don't want to do that, you'd like insulin to last longer than usual, which means changes to it that make breakdown slower, or adding something that makes it stick to albumin, which has similar effect because it hides insulin somewhere enzymes can't reach it and also it makes it start acting slower. this means less frequent dosing and less changes in insulin activity over time. there are also other insulins that start acting faster than natural, and this is also due to a couple of modifications in its structure

for another example, ozempic was not the first drug in its class, it's also a modified peptide, and it can be injected s.c. once a week, compared to previous iteration (liraglutide) that requires daily injections. if natural peptide is injected i.m. instead, its halflife is half an hour, and in serum it's only two minutes (it gets released a bit slower than it is metabolized)

manufacturing costs are about the same for any variant, most of it is in purification. patents for a couple of these have expired anyway by now, but if manufacturing is limited then price can be set arbitrarily high (see daraprim)

[-] Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world 45 points 6 months ago

Oh wow, an actual nuanced response and genuine answer!

Also today I learned!

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[-] Lumidaub@feddit.org 20 points 6 months ago

You'd THINK capitalism would cause that to happen, wouldn't you?

[-] Banana@sh.itjust.works 16 points 6 months ago

Doesn't work when people don't get to choose not to take it when it gets too expensive! That thing that capitalists always forget about: necessities.

[-] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 6 months ago

Every time someone talks about you being supposedly free to choose where to work they should get instant diarrhea. Let alone medicine of course, that's a hard dependence.

Nobody is truly free without proper UBI and free healthcare and good public transport. Only then true freedom can exist.

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[-] Soulg@ani.social 19 points 6 months ago

Correct, but when it's already been established that people will pay those prices, they keep them high. So instead of going from $800 to $5 out of the goodness of their hearts, they go from $800 to $650 (number made up) to get more business but still make massive profits.

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[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 39 points 6 months ago
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[-] Digit@lemmy.wtf 37 points 6 months ago

Welcome to USA, I guess.

In other countries, you could probably completely fill a fridge with insulin for $800.

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 21 points 6 months ago

If you need a lot of different prescribed drugs then £114.50/year to cover every prescription you have is an option here. Otherwise £9.90 each.

[-] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 29 points 6 months ago
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[-] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 25 points 6 months ago

Invented by a Canadian, exploited by an American.

[-] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 6 months ago

https://fourthievesvinegar.org/

It is not a solution, but maybe an alternative to death…

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[-] Zerush@lemmy.ml 16 points 6 months ago

US Healthcare = pay or die

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

Oh, it's not that good.

It's "Pay until you run out of money and can no longer take on more debt. Then die."

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this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
1812 points (100.0% liked)

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