The Shot is a weekly digest of media about insulin deprivation in the United States and the movement for insulin for all. Every Friday morning, the Shot will share clips, analysis, and commentary in service of the people whose lives depend on a perpetual supply of insulin to put into their bodies — people whose lives are threatened by the status quo and who are working to change their situation.
The editorial position of this newsletter is that anything that stands in the way of people getting the medicine they need to survive is morally indefensible.
Insulin has arrived in the American media and political spotlight in the past years after many difficult years of advocacy on the part of the diabetes community. Now that it’s here, everyone from the President of the United States to your most offline high school friend seems to have a take. Network TV talking heads, wonks, edgelords, TikTokers, and various other creatures of the online media ecosystem are weighing in at an accelerating clip. State chapters of T1 International are drafting and pushing legislation, and the major diabetes non-profits are pushing pharma talking points while losing money and support. Meanwhile, the world remains in the grip of a global pandemic whose death toll comprises 40% people with diabetes. There’s a lot happening.
The first order of business for the Shot is to offer a weekly news digest so the diabetes community can keep track of what’s happening at the local, state, and federal levels, what narratives are catching on, what’s getting left out, and who’s on their side.
The secondary goal of the newsletter is to provide an alternative to the existing diabetes media landscape — and the larger health media— that is not, on a regular basis, sufficiently adversarial to those in power. Pharmaceutical, insurance, and device companies, along with political parties, and pharma-backed NGOs, are often treated as important stakeholders in the conversation about access to insulin. Not here. When our lives are at stake, we are the only stakeholders who matter.
With that in mind, the Shot will offer no reviews of diabetes tech, no rehashed Eli Lilly press releases, and no diabetes lifestyle inspiration porn. Our lives will not be bargained away for clout, respectability, or speaking slots at diabetes conferences.
The media needs a dose of diabetes reality. People with diabetes need insulin. It’s that simple.
Here’s this week’s Shot.
Tuesday’s Presidential Debate: a Flood of Lies on Insulin
“I’m getting it for so cheap, it’s like water.”
Anyone with a strong enough stomach or a hearty enough masochistic streak who was able to watch Tuesday night’s presidential debate heard President Trump tout his executive orders on drug prices — and vastly exaggerate their effect on the cost of insulin. Sounding like a discount mattress warehouse salesman on a local access TV commercial, President Trump claimed that insulin, consistently priced >$300 for a 10mL vial, is now as cheap as water thanks to him. As much as I like to indulge my fantasy of having insulin literally on tap in my kitchen, the executive orders Trump signed did NOT turn on any great insulin faucets. In fact, the EOs, like the one which caps insulin co-pays at $35 only for a small percentage of Medicare beneficiaries, won’t even go into effect until next year.
Here are some worthwhile reports and op-eds on Tuesday’s tussle.
Washington Post: Trump says he’s made insulin ‘so cheap it’s like water.’ That’s not true.
L.A. Times: Trump says insulin is now so cheap, it’s ‘like water.’ It isn’t.
California Dreaming (About Publicly Manufactured Insulin)
Last weekend, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill paving the way for the state to make and sell its own line of generic drugs — including at least one form of insulin. As some have pointed out on Twitter, many people with diabetes use more than one type of insulin (a long acting and a short acting). Still, the bill’s signing is a win for the California #Insulin4All advocates who pushed for it, and represents new potential pathways to better access.
While most current insulin-related legislation focuses on reining in costs of insulins produced by the three pharmaceutical firms who make nearly all the world’s current supply (Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi), the California law focuses on the possibility of taking some insulin production out of their hands. It could be a new frontier in both increasing insulin access and saving governments money. Plus, think of all the cute labels they could slap on those meds. (A grizzly bear? Half dome? The lyrics to “Venice Bitch?”)
NPR: California Governor Signs A Bill To Allow State To Develop Generic Drugs
STAT: With a new law, California becomes the first state to pursue its own line of generics
Older articles on the possibilities of publicly manufactured pharmaceuticals worth checking out:
In These Times: It’s Time for a Public Option in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Tribune: It’s Time to Socialise Big Pharma
The Shot in weeks ahead:
COVID-19 + Diabetes
Biden’s health care plans
Co-pay caps
Lots more.
Thanks for reading.