Insulin has one of the highest profit margins of all medications, and why not, since the pharmaceutical industry has a captive market for this product? In recent years, the ‘diabetes industry’ has been growing exponentially, with normal blood sugar ranges being lowered to induct more ‘customers’ into the system, with an increased emphasis on expensive blood sugar testing, and with ever new treatments, from meters to pumps to aerosol sprays, which increase the profits from diabetes for doctors and drug companies, but which also keep the patient trapped in the ‘slave-plantation’ of imitating what should be the natural action of the pancreas. What I wonder, eighty years after insulin was discovered, is whether there is any reason to hope the diabetes industry, which also has control over research for a cure, will ever choose to put itself out of business by giving us patients what we want?

There is absolutely no evidence that the diabetes pharmaceutical industry or physicians or medical schools desire that diabetes continue to exist. If there are cures for diabetes or better treatments, these would be known by many different physicians and researchers.

While it is true that insulin is often a monopoly, or nearly so with only a few companies producing insulin in any given area, it is a very inexpensive medication compared to most other medications. In fact, the diabetes companies are, in general, much more heavily involved with research and treatment programs compared to other pharmaceutical concerns. We know from the DCCT and the UKPDS, among many other studies, that tighter control is associated with fewer complications and, in order to achieve improved control, more monitoring is needed. Whether this results in more daily insulin doses, insulin pump recommendations or any other combination of intensified treatments is very individualized and not prescribed by any pharmaceutical, meter or device manufacturer — but by physicians and nurses in close collaboration with patient and family.

SB