Before your ask, whatās wrong with defining some cancer & diabetes drugs as essential? Nothing. Apart from the fact that the *glutides (Wegoby, Mounjaro, Ozempic and the alikes), have also made it to the list at the same time! ā¦ excuse me???
Reading it brought me back to early career memories, particularly to another ashaming (to say the least) example:
The birth-control pill was on the āwaiting listā of drugs to be registered by the Japanese regulatory national agency (the local FDA/NICE/EMA) for 40 years (ie. Japanese women had to buy them illegally, smuggled from other countries). They were only authorized in the country in 1998.
They were authorized on the same meeting session than Viagra, that took the ever shortest timing from request to authorization for the Japanese national medicine regulatory agency:
6 months.
Question about that, at the beginning of selling viagra to the ageing hardonless population it was claimed that viagra would make the Chinese trade in " natural" aphrodisiacs like rhino horn and powdeted tiger testicles obsolete.
Genuine question, did this ever happen?
Depends on what one considers a medical problem. Birth control is not. Except in a social sense. Cant get it up is in a physical sense. Both however are drugs.
However, if men were to have the problem of getting pregnant, thenā¦
What is it about these medications that upsets you? Sure, theyāre currently āin fashionā for fast weight loss. Outside of that, at least Ozempic has legitimately helped a lot of T2 diabetics - in fact, there has been a shortage of the medication for those who really need it thanks to those who (apparently) only want it for a quick fix.
Doctors are constantly telling us to lose weight to have better health outcomes. The glutides are one quick way to do that. The debate about side effects, long-term use, etc. is over in the thread about said glutides.
If used purely for weight loss therapy the theory is that people change their eating habits and their relationship to food in conjunction with taking the medication and they can then stop taking it and maintain the weight loss.
In practice people just see it as a quick fix to lose loads of weight whilst continuing an unhealthy lifestyle and eating what they like. These are the people who will just pile all the weight back on again if they stop.
They need to be prescribed carefully and with the help of dietary and exercise professionals in order to achieve long term success without the medication.
If used as a treatment for diabetes thatās a different story and those people are likely to need to take the medication for life.
If you are diabetic, youāre going to be on something forever anyway. Iād rather do ozempic than insulin. (Referring to t2)
Iāve been on ozempic for 6 years. Itās moved my weight set point down about 15 kg. I weighed the same for more than 20 years, and with ozempic my weight is the lowest itās been in more than 30 years, and itās stayed put. After the first 5 months, it also regulated my H1b so itās been the same for more than 5 years. However, I experienced some really strange fluctuations in blood sugar during the first 5 months. Eventually it settled down.
Itās been a really helpful drug for me and if it helps someone, then great. Itās not really a quick fix, but it can be very effective where other methods donāt have the same result.
I donāt know about the gaunt faces- I think that is more the buccal fat removal thatās all the rage.
I often have people tell me that they have just read that they have cured diabetes. The media, and the WHO obviously, consider the two diseases to be the same thing. They still donāt know what causes Type 1 and the last breakthrough in treatment was the introduction of insulin in 1923. Today over 98% of research is for treatment of Type 2 diabetes with other forever drugs.
The patent for insulin was sold by its inventorsāFrederick Banting, Charles Best, and James Collipāto the University of Toronto for $1 each in 1923. The motivation was to prevent commercial exploitation and to ensure that insulin would be widely accessible and affordable for all who needed it, rather than to gain personal profit. Insulin thus stands as a rare example of a world-changing medical discovery intentionally placed under public stewardship in its early years, although modern pricing and patenting practices have since diverged from the inventorsā original aims.
Is it really any worse than any of the other catch-all terms in general use? Cancer, for example, which can refer to dozens of very different types, I mean ones which are no more related to one another than T1 and T2 diabetes.
On a related note, Iāve just discovered that one of my cats has diabetes, Type 2. Her bloods were all perfectly normal a year ago when she had some unrelated treatment, but I took her down to the vet last week to get some drops for an eye inflammation and asked them to test kidney function etc., quite a common problem for older cats (sheās 12, so not geriatric, butā¦) as Iāve noticed recently how much she is drinking, and peeing.
Anyway, the kidneys are fine, but blood sugar was at 2.3 on a scale where 1.0 is normal, so quite a clear diagnosis. Sheāll go in for a day next week while they inject insulin and monitor throughout the day to establish a dose level, then itās probably going to be twice-daily tablets from then on.
Iāve never heard of cats getting it, and itās clearly unrelated to obesity in this case at least. (Cos she aināt fat).
Type 3 gestational diabetes has been known for a very long time. Discussions over the years about whether another type exists or is just a variationā¦
One of my momās cats has T2 diabetes (among other issues). She receives daily injections of āvetsulinā, which is a lower insulin dosage tailored towards pets.
@bowlie I can understand your frustration. Iāve only ever known two people in my life that were T1 but plenty of T2s.
Unfortunately for you and other T1s, the difference in numbers of patients means the big money for drug manufacturers is in finding ways to manage/treat/cure T2. And most conversations that talk about diabetes revolve around T2.
My vet talked about a tablet medication, and a little digging reveals that there are now two non-insulin treatments available, one a liquid, one a tablet, so Iām hoping this is whet he was referring to. I thought he said twice daily though, this is only once a day. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/animal-health-literacy/two-new-drugs-treat-diabetes-cats-one-right-your-cat
Iāve no problem with giving injections but itās much more of a burden to put on my tenant/neighbour who will feed them when Iām away for a day or three, or house sitters if itās for longer periods.
Anyway, sheās going in for observation and tests on Tuesday, so Iāll see what they say then.
) I just wanted to point out some interesting changes on the WHO latest **** decission: