Same

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)

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.

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

Yup, but their products don’t work as well, don’t work for everyone, or have other downsides. Banting’s original insulin would be dirt cheap today, but it’s shit compared to what we have now, so the best products on the market today charge a premium for either efficacy or convenience.

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.

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)

In civilized countries at least.

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.

IIRC the insulin being sold now is manufactured differently and the patents are completely different anyway

But overall your point is good

It was sold to a Canadian public university to manage the patent for public good.

They have, everywhere else in the world basically, insulin costs pennies.

In America, they have been able to patent certain formulations and delivery methods, and they keep making marginal modifications to string the patents out to keep Americans locked in to absurd insulin prices.

Was that the answer you thought it was going to be?

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It’s already happening, there’s been a deluge of affluent people leaving the US.

We’re still at the stage where it takes considerable privilege to just leave everything behind and pay the exit extortion (40% of all your shit).

Once things get worse and people have nothing to leave behind you’ll start seeing the engineers/doctors escaping.

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.

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

I did it a while ago, would recommend.

Does anyone really need to live? What you need is to be producing value for your company!

/S

I would literally move if I could afford it and if it was even a little easier.

Stockholm syndrome suggests we enjoy it or want to be here.

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.

Since we’re roleplaying you should also say “skulls for the skull throne.”