this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Wild_Mastic@lemmy.world 215 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Meanwhile, 10 euros per vial here in Europe. At least his original plan for widespread and easy availability has partially succeeded.

[–] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 143 points 1 month ago

In civilized countries at least.

[–] ChilledPeppers@lemmy.dbzer0.com 82 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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)

[–] mika_mika@lemmy.world 50 points 1 month ago

I have mental health disabilities in the USA and my meds are at zero cost because I literally have had absolute zero income for the past 5 years.

You wouldn't believe how much those mood stabilizer/antidepressant cocktails stack up proportionally when I was able to scrape by on $15 an hour.

The system set me up to fail with how shitty it is, if healthcare wasn't crap I could be contributing to society without crippling myself.

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[–] BootLoop@sh.itjust.works 147 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Canadians: invented drug and patent it freely

Americans: Finds way to kill the most people possible while making the most amount of money

[–] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 64 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 130 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I’m not diabetic and the situation with insulin fills me with a white hot rage.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 102 points 1 month ago (4 children)

If you talk about killing the few people like these that are the root cause of all these problems, you're a terrorist. You go to jail

These people actually kill people by the thousands, millions, and we call them smart CEO's and celebrate them 🥂

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 59 points 1 month ago

Free Luigi.

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[–] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 72 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (20 children)

I wonder if all the sane Americans did a mass exodus to Canada, Europe, UK, Australia etc, what effect that would have

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 100 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 69 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Not if you stayed, then it’s an investment. Money doesn’t just disappear when goes to poor people, they use it to buy things like food and stuff. It would only be a financial drain if you were sending that money back home.

The North American mind cannot comprehend the benefits of supporting the poor.

[–] slothrop@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 month ago (1 children)

UBI should be ubiquitous.

UBI = Universal Basic Income

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[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 31 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Perhaps strain would be a better word than drain - it would still be a short-mid term financial burden to take even a tiny fraction of the sane population from the US, it's a big country. Sure would be nice if it could be arranged though...

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[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago (6 children)

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

[–] Master@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 month ago

Its prohibitively impossible.

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[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 71 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Remember Remember the 4th of December

[–] volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz 40 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 48 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

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

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[–] macncheese@lemmy.world 63 points 1 month ago (11 children)

California is contracting its own insulin supply and it'll be available for $11 a pen starting Jan 1, 2026. I know not every state can or are willing to do this but just throwing out some examples and hopefully optimism to somehow fight the American decline from within it. We're in a unique position as our state economy is larger than most countries but I am hopeful we will throw our weight around to counter the bs. https://www.chhs.ca.gov/blog/2025/10/17/governor-newsom-announces-affordable-calrx-insulin-11-a-pen-will-soon-be-available-for-purchase/

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 57 points 1 month ago (26 children)

Capitalism is economic terrorism.

[–] Woht24@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It's almost like someone should go and shoot the CEO dead in the street

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[–] oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com 57 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Please support the Open Insulin Foundation who are creating an open source model for insulin production! Such an important project!

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[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 47 points 1 month ago (6 children)

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.

[–] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (22 children)

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.

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[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 42 points 1 month ago (15 children)

Naive question from a european: Aren't there companies on the market who can offer a cheaper price and therefore beat greedy competitors?

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 106 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

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)

[–] Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Oh wow, an actual nuanced response and genuine answer!

Also today I learned!

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[–] Soulg@ani.social 20 points 1 month ago

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.

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 41 points 1 month ago (40 children)

Americans suffer from Stockholm syndrome

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[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 39 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Soo why sell the patent for $1 and have it be potentially exploited when you could hold onto it and licence use for free?

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 62 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

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

But overall your point is good

[–] TheKingBee@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It is different, but it's still incredibly cheap to make, $4 a vial, so it costing in the hundreds is just antihuman...

[–] TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not anti human, the rest of us get it just fine. It's specifically anti-american

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[–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 39 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Welcome to USA, I guess.

In other countries, you could probably completely fill a fridge with insulin for $800.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 21 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 39 points 1 month ago (6 children)
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[–] Devial@discuss.online 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago (18 children)

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.

[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 39 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

https://youtu.be/naqbi_qVoVY

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[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 28 points 1 month ago (3 children)
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[–] bonenode@piefed.social 25 points 1 month ago (7 children)

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?

[–] BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 26 points 1 month ago

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.

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[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 month ago

Invented by a Canadian, exploited by an American.

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