insulin

Who is to blame for high insulin prices in the USA? Big Pharma?

by Michael Simpson
2022-04-24
Biotechnology, Diabetes, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Pharmaceutical, Sanofi

Insulin prices are a big issue in the USA because they seem to be skyrocketing upwards much faster than inflation or anything else. Of course, people are blaming Big Pharma, because they seem to be the major culprits behind the gouging of diabetics.

However, like everything else, the facts behind insulin prices are much more complicated than what you might be reading in the most recent Facebook meme or post about the subject. Because a 4-line meme is so much easier than writing a complicated article about the world of insulin prices.

And I’m going to try to guide you through the travesty of how pharmaceuticals are priced and how it’s a total mess. And remember, this is only about America’s pharmaceutical pricing mess — hopefully, the rest of the world does this better.

BCG diabetes vaccine — beginning pediatric phase 2 clinical trials

A pediatric phase 2 clinical trial using bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine, or BCG vaccine, to reverse even advanced type 1 diabetes mellitus has begun. Type 1 diabetes is considered irreversible, so if phase 2 and 3 clinical trials show that the vaccine is safe and effective in reversing diabetes, it would be one of the most important advances in medicine.

Let’s take a look at what is type 1 diabetes (since a lot of people confuse it with type 2 diabetes), the clinical trial, and other information. Maybe one of you is close enough to the trial centers so that you may, if you have type 1 diabetes, can sign up to participate in the trial.

I am very hopeful about this clinical trial, but I also know that it will take many years before we know if it works.

Vaccines cause diabetes – another myth refuted and debunked

If you cruise around the internet, engaging with the anti-vaccine religion (not recommended), you will pick up on their standard tropes, lies, and other anti-science commentaries, like the claim that vaccines cause diabetes. Of course, once one digs into the scientific facts, you find little supporting evidence.

A lot of the vaccine deniers believe that vaccines cause a lot of everything and several claims that vaccines cause Type 1 diabetes (or here), based on little evidence. As far as I can tell, this myth is based on the “research” from J. Barthelow Classen, M.D., who has pushed the idea that vaccines cause type 1 diabetes, through some magical process that has never been supported by other independent evidence.

In another example of the anti-vaccine zealot’s cherry-picking evidence to support their a priori conclusions, they ignore the utter lack of plausibility supporting any link between vaccines and Type 1 diabetes. At best, Classen has cherry-picked statistics to support his predetermined conclusions, “comparing apples to oranges with health data from different countries, and misrepresenting studies to back his claim.”

Moreover, Classen seems to come to his beliefs based on population-wide correlations that rely on post hoc fallacies, rather than actually showing causality between vaccines and diabetes. It’s like finding that a 5% increase in consumption of Big Macs is correlated with a full moon. Those two things may happen at the same time, but it would take a laughable stretch of real science to make a cause for causality.

Diabetes myths – homeopathy does not cure, vaccines do not cause

Now, for something completely different. I had to break the streak of vaccine articles, especially since I am interested in all parts of science denial – evolution, GMOs, climate change, and, of course, vaccines. But today, we’re going to focus on diabetes myths. Why, well my academic field of study was focused on insulin and insulin-like growth factors effects on aging – and I continued to keep up with the literature on insulin and diabetes ever since then.

What troubles me about diabetes is that the quacks have decided to make it a business opportunity for their fake potions, lotions, herbal medicines, and magical foods. Now, I don’t have time to cover every single one of those diabetes myths, but I’m going to cover the ones that annoy me the most.Read More »Diabetes myths – homeopathy does not cure, vaccines do not cause

Cinnamon for diabetes – myth or science?

People frequently want the easy way to correct their health issues. They want to imbue a magical quality to “natural” products to make themselves healthier. They don’t want to take one of those evil Big Pharma drugs. For example, over the past few years, Big Supplement has pushed a belief that cinnamon for diabetes is a great treatment.

But really, do these supplements actually do all that much? Well, the real scientific evidence gives little support to the health benefits of these various supplements. I’ve probably written over 50 articles on supplements, and maybe one supplement has any value in health.

Look at cancer prevention. There really are only a handful of ways to prevent cancer, and none of them include megadoses (or even single doses) of supplements.

We probably see a million advertisements for supplements and “natural” foods that make you thinner, healthier, smarter, stronger, better. Of course, if even 1% of the claims (or outright fabrications) made by these hawkers were supported by real science, we could close down Big Pharma and all those physicians hawking those evil drugs that aren’t necessary.

Except, we know that’s not true. And it’s time to look at the claims of cinnamon for diabetes – what is the real science.

Richard Dawkins GMO position is made clear to Prince Charles

During the late 1990s, Richard Dawkins, noted secularist, author and evolutionary biologist, wrote an open letter to Prince Charles, noted promoter of pseudoscience and heir apparent to the British throne, about the Prince’s hostility to science. Even though Richard Dawkins GMO letter was written more than a decade ago, the salient points still ring true today:

…Sir, I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the natural-ness of ‘traditional’ or ‘organic’ agriculture. Agriculture has always been unnatural. Our species began to depart from our natural hunter-gatherer lifestyle as recently as 10,000 years ago – too short to measure on the evolutionary timescale.

Wheat, be it ever so wholemeal and stoneground, is not a natural food for Homo sapiens. Nor is milk, except for children. Almost every morsel of our food is genetically modified – admittedly by artificial selection not artificial mutation, but the end result is the same. A wheat grain is a genetically modified grass seed, just as a pekinese is a genetically modified wolf. Playing God? We’ve been playing God for centuries!

Richard Dawkins’ GMO ideas reflect real science, based on everything we know about genetics, agriculture, and biochemistry. Even though Dawkins letter was written a decade before the anti-GMO forces decided to make it a thing, it is still salient today.

Read More »Richard Dawkins GMO position is made clear to Prince Charles

Genetically engineered insulin does not cause cancer in diabetics

by Michael Simpson
2020-10-01
5 Comments
Biotechnology, Cancer, Diabetes, GMO, Pregnancy

I have a lot of issues with the pseudo-medicine pushed by many many websites whose sole purpose is to push woo, or nonsense, to their readers. Then they have links to buy junk medicine from their website. Natural News, Mercola, and others have become multimillionaires with this business model.

These “entrepreneurs” deceive their readers with pure pseudoscience, using misleading language, and searching scientific literature for research that confirms their beliefs and ignoring everything that refutes it. They oversimplify complex issues, “take this pill, it will prevent all cancers,” making it seem most medicine can be boiled down to taking a couple of supplements–which they sell on their website. Of course.

Some might argue that this information isn’t dangerous. These people will say that a couple of supplements, even if they’re expensive, isn’t going to hurt. Maybe, though there’s a lot of evidence that those couple of pills might be more harmful than even I expected. But if these junk medicine websites push information that can harm or kill, then someone has to draw a line in the sand and tell them “you lie, and by lying, you might kill.”

Many of us say that about these woo-websites’ general antivaccination beliefs. This blog has posted numerous articles about the Natural News’ unethical and risky antivaccination articles. Mike Adams, the so-called Health Ranger and wealthy owner of the Natural News, makes his money by pushing his lies and misinformation about vaccines.Read More »Genetically engineered insulin does not cause cancer in diabetics

Vaccines from GMO corn–science deniers everywhere faint

For me, the “Big Four” of science denialism are climate change, evolution, vaccines and genetically modified crops or food. There are a few others, and some actually tie into the Big Four, like denying the scientific fact called Germ Theory, which states that some diseases are caused by microorganisms. Antivaccination forces embrace wholeheartedly the denial of Germ Theory.

But rarely can you get a two for one deal, where two key sciences can be denied in one fell swoop. However, I found one.

A small technology venture, called Applied Biotechnology Institute (ABI) in San Luis Obispo, CA, a lovely small city along the Central Coast of California, has developed a method to genetically modify corn to produce medically useful proteins. They are focused on specialized enzymes, sweeteners, and vaccines.

One of their more interesting products, and not really the focus of this article, is a specialized enzyme that cleaves off a part of the pre-insulin molecule to create actual insulin. The enzyme is required in the final production step of human insulin, itself produce from genetically modified crops and bacteria. By the way, genetically engineered human insulin saves millions of lives every year world wide–on the other hand, genetically engineered organisms have harmed no one, as far as science can tell.Read More »Vaccines from GMO corn–science deniers everywhere faint

Cinnamon to manage diabetes? Don’t bother.

This article has been substantially updated for readability and quality of evidence based on new publications.

People want the easy way to correct their health issues. They want to imbue a magical quality to “natural” products to make themselves healthier. They don’t want to take one of those evil Big Pharma drugs. Or put in the discipline or effort to reverse a chronic disease. If all that was not true, we probably wouldn’t see a million advertisements for supplements and “natural” foods that make you thinner, healthier, smarter, stronger, better. Of course, if even 1% of the claims (or outright fabrications) made by these hawkers of these supplements were supported by real science, physicians and Big Pharma would be unnecessary.

One of the diseases for which everyone is searching for a panacea is diabetes. It is essentially a disease of blood glucose management and is really several, unrelated diseases. Type 1 diabetes mellitus, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, results from a lack of insulin production by the pancreas. Until insulin was discovered and isolated, type 1 diabetes was essentially a death sentence. And today, with bioengineered human insulin (until the 1980’s, when recombinant DNA insulin was manufactured, insulin was purified from pigs), patients can live relatively normal, healthy lives with type 1 diabetes. Most individuals contract the disease in childhood, although one form, latent autoimmune diabetes of adults (LADA) is very similar to Type 1 diabetes, but the autoimmune disease strikes well after the common ages of Type 1. It is still treated with insulin.Read More »Cinnamon to manage diabetes? Don’t bother.