Please support the Open Insulin Foundation who are creating an open source model for insulin production! Such an important project!
Capitalism is economic terrorism.
It’s almost like someone should go and shoot the CEO dead in the street
Technically a funnel system for 1%.
One could argue that patents and copyright are anti-capitalist
yeah. but more importantly your fucked up excuse for democracy is fucked.
plenty of capitalist countries that don’t have this problem.
Remember Remember the 4th of December
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.
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
I am so, so sorry about your loss. I’m glad to hear that you were able to feel a beacon of hope last year, and that this painting was a way for you to cling on to it and feel it a little longer. I hope you find a way to keep holding on to it, and through that hope find the courage to not give up and try to support change instead whenever you can and have the strength and energy to do so. But I can’t even imagine how hard that must be. And most of all, carry the love you had for your mom in your heart despite the grief, and the disgust and hate for the system that led to her demise quicker than it had to be.
I hope you don’t mind if I save that picture of yours.
Thank you for the kind words yes no problem
Symbols are powerful things. I’m not an American, but something that surprised me with Mangione was how people on the left and the right seemed to support him. It was a rare case of example of political unity amongst regular people.
It was incredible how right wing pundits were so disconnected from their audience, trying to promote outrage while their audience would have been popping champaign of they could afford it
Yeah I noticed this too
✊
The drug I have to take to live costs anywhere from $4,000-$5,500/month without insurance. This is actually cheaper than what I was on before—a cocktail of 4 drugs, some taken multiple times a day, that was almost $10,000/month. I’m lucky(?) that there are a ton of programs that together cover the cost for me. Unfortunately there are hoops I have to jump through every month to continue qualifying for the assistance and have to regularly take time off from work to make the appointments. I’ve lost jobs due to this, but am currently working a position where my manager is happy enough with my work to fudge time cards to help me out.
I hate this country.
oh, it gets better. Baby born with Spinal and Muscle Atrophy? There is a cure! $2,500,000!
They hold lotteries for doses, a few babies win, most babies die.
Jesus, that’s terrible! I somehow hate this country even more now.
We all do. Luckily most of us only have to live with the fallout and not actually have to be there.
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.
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.
And it’s not just “overcrowded jails full of pretrial prisoners, the barefoot children carrying buckets for water in Appalachia” but the grad students in LA living out of their cars, or grandpa sleeping on a bus stop, or people in the Rockies surviving off roadkill and forage.
Seattle tent cities/tiny homes make some Favelas look real swanky.
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.
Third world doesn’t mean poor, it just means not aligned with US or Russia
Espousing an old no longer relevant definition to sound smarter and be “right” is peak lemmy/reddit behavior. Third world does mean poor now.
It doesn’t. It never did.
It does. Strictly it does. Why do you think china is no longer considered third world?
Strictly, technically every other way China is still third world. This concept of third world being poor seems to have originated from the common charity ads in the 90s and 2000s who loved the phrase, and from the American exceptionalism that thinks everything not American is dirty and poor.
Being poor is the only way a country is third world or not. Being politically related to America is not relevant to the present definition. So no, it is not “technically in every other way”. It just is not a third world country, period.
It used to mean that. First World was US aligned (or at least US friendly), Second World was Soviet aligned, Third World was not aligned
Now though, First World means developed nations, Third World means poor nations, Second World has fallen out of use
Only to those ignorant of it’s meaning. Developing nations is what people mean. Like people say third world, third to what? What’s first and second?
No one really uses that word in its Cold War context anymore. It’s the common term for “developing countries” and the like.
People believe that only because they haven’t learned what it actually means.
You’re right that they either never learned what 1st-2nd-3rd world really means, or they forgot what they were taught in history class. Unfortunately it still is the main term to refer to poor countries even though it’s incorrect. Language seems to be biased towards the common meaning over the technically correct meaning.
Spain isn’t third world, it already had shown the middle finger to Trump and also has few to do with Rusia. Third world countries don’t certainly mean people starving, the people there often have all what they need, but this, you’ll see few Ferraries there and chalets with swimming pool. Someone is rich, not necesarly because a lot of money, but because he need only few. We often enter in a rabbit hole of the consumism, spending a lot of money in things we really don’t need, we work like a dog to have enough money to pay a journey to Hawaii to recover us from the burnout, which we wouldn’t have working less, no needing this journey.
Have you been to Spain? I’m not saying it is not better than where the US is headed to, but it’s a “western” country in Europe, with all the issues that come with it. Somewhat social market economy, but still suffering from the usual issues, including people driving Ferraris while others sleep on the street.
Also, at least since Franco I don’t think anyone genuinely thinks of Spain as third world.
Well, I’m from Spain, also in Spain there are People with Ferraries (few) and also poor people, but there is nobody without food, because Spain has a strong social system and free healthcare for everyone. Nothing, absolute nothing to do with the US, it’s the opposite in almost everything. Luckily Spain has also little dependency on the US or Rusia, so it is also not much affected by Trumps Tariffs or Rusian Gaspolicy. Trump hates Spain.
If you can eat well for $1 then it is definitely a poor country relative to the US. Differences in purchasing power are a direct result of differences in wealth.
I think that the US is a third world country, it’s rich but most money is used for weapons and to make richer the billonairs and big corporations, in the social and cultural sphere, it is one of the most backward in the world. Now with Trump the US is turning in a running gag for the most countries. A country where 40 milloncof citizen don’t have enough to eat at least 2 times a day, isn’t a rich country.
Usa is the hub of first world. Russia is the second. Thirds is everyone else.
USA is an total dystopic country, any Banana Republic has more culture. US is only powerfull because use all the money for weapons, developed by foreigner scientifics. First world is anything else.
You will say that the US is a first world country, it’s better for your health
I really should just put a full block on lemmy.ml. Thanks for the reminder!
There’s a reason countries like Vietnam are so popular with digital nomads.
My dream would be to get a remote nightshift job and live in a house by the beaches of south Thailand
It’s also much harder to become a middle class in those countries.
Not really. Poverty rates are higher, yes, but many middle income third world countries do have sizeable and growing middle classes. They’re called developing countries for a reason. The image of war-torn African countries where everyone works in mines isn’t really representative.
Welcome to USA, I guess.
In other countries, you could probably completely fill a fridge with insulin for $800.
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.
I can confirm, as a insured I am paying $0.00 for Insulin in Macedonia. Now I am receiving 6 Novo Nordisk Tresiba pens per month. How much is that in US?
I couldn’t find the answer easily myself and ended up asking AI, so take this with a significant grain of salt, but supposedly a 3mL pen would be around $145 without insurance. If anyone can find a better source, I’d be all ears.
it is difficult to find out (by design) but i have found this for uninsured people
and this for insured people who qualify for a savings card(?)
Is it free in grey countries?
Either that, or maybe they don’t have diabetes there. (Lol joking)
1/5th cost just by driving to Canada.
If he wanted it to be freely available, why did he even sell the patent ? Just disclaim at the patent office. Selling is just asking the new holder to start enforcing.
They sold the patent to the University of Toronto, so they didn’t exactly sell it to a for-profit patent troll.
But also, that was in 1923, so the patent has long since expired.
They also don’t make insulin the way that he did back then. Not justifying the price hike cause the way its made now is way cheaper than it was with the old method (which was basically grinding up animal parts to extract insulin). These fucks are just profiting off of the suffering of Americans who have literally no choice but to use their drug.
I mean, that’s better than selling to a private person, still feels weird, since disclaiming a patent is absolutely possible, and has a 100% chance of leading to the desired outcome, vs whatever small chance there may be that the University starts taking profits on it. Or even just sees themselves forced to sell the patent, because of potential financial issues.
Yeah, the risk is small, but eliminating it in it’s entirety would’ve been easily possible, so it just feels a bit weird he didn’t do it.
Remember, the 1920s is long ago. Giving the patent to the equivalent of a non-profit organisation was probably better than disclaiming it, since it’s easier to have one large, well-known entity that will fight off people trying to re-patent it than to disclaim it and hope that no patent clerk ever lets a fraudulent re-patent go through.
In 1920 you couldn’t just google for prior art when fighting a fraudulent patent.
Ok, that is a fair point I hadn’t previosuly considered. Though disclaiming a patent doesn’t loose you all legal recourse.
If someone else tries to repatent it, even if it gets approved, you can still file a challenge against the new patent with the PTO. You (or anyone else, really) would also have a virtually guaranteed court win, even if someone got the patent through and tried to enforce it. All you’d have to prove in court is that prior art of the invention exists, therefore the patent is invalid and unenforceable, granted or not, so it’s unlikely someone would even bother trying to enforce such a patent. A previous, diclaimed patent, of literally the identical technology being on record is pretty iron clad and unavoidable evidence that the patent isn’t original.
Nowadays you just google for other patents and done. But back then, I guess that searching for prior art was quite a lot more difficult. Gifting the patent to an university so that they defend open access to the patent sounds like a more reliable plan.
I mean, even nowadays patents are greenlit my patent offices even though there’s clear prior art (Nintendo’s recent patent for catching monsters in a ball in a game comes to mind, which Nintendo would have to have patented before publishing their first game with that mechanic around 30 years ago), and even today it’s really difficult and expensive to get such a clear nonsense patent invalidated.
So difficult that e.g. Palworld opted to change the mechanic instead of fighting the patent.
So I do understand why someone would instead gift the patent to an university under the condition that they keep access to it open, especially 100 years ago.
I never heard of disclaiming a patent until just now. Maybe he didn’t know about or it didn’t exiat in the 1920’s
It is widely available, just not in the US
How is it even possible to afford $800 for insulin? It boggles the mind
Something in american.
It’s 10¢ in developed countries like Georgia
And let’s be clear, we’re talking about the European OG Georgia, not the US state.
Isn’t that where Palin saw the Russians?
Russians with almost free insulin, friend
Invented by a Canadian, exploited by an American.
For Australian diabetes patients the insulin Fiasp is $31.60 on the PBS, but Americans pay $930, while the medication Jardiance is $619 to $698 in the US compared to again $31.60 for the 220,000 Australians who access it. (I’m on Jardiance)
Why can’t Americans mail order it from Canada? Is the US going to tax the crap out of it when it crosses the border?
Yes they will absolutely fuck you on it IF they even allow it at all.
You know, in the spirit of “free markets” and all that bull shit.
I believe there are some restrictions on mailing insulin across the border due to regulations and customs laws. However, there might be ways around it if you’re willing to do a little research and possibly pay extra fees.
people have been crossing to canada for cheap insulin drugs, the same one made by the trioply insulin companies via driving. other healthcare options, like dental work or medical procedures, they will be seeking places like thailand, mexico, india(the cities that cater to medical tourism)
These god damn foreigners crossing the border to leech of developed countries. They really need to put that wall up.
What website would we mail order it from?
couple of reddit threads suggest that this is something you can do, but you have to be evasive around american border guard later if you go in person
Fuck.
In Canada it is still considered expensive, but not even close to $800/month. It’s only considered expensive because most shit like that is free or a very nominal fee, but repeated need is what it is.
