Insulin Price Plan, Monkeypox Facts, Milky Way Memoir. August 12, 2022, Part 1
Science Friday
Science Friday and WNYC Studios
4.4 • 6.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2022
⏱️ 48 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Later in the hour, a master course on monkeypox, |
| 0:05.7 | debunking some common misconceptions about the virus, and meet the all-knowing galaxy we live in |
| 0:12.0 | the Milky Way in a sassy new tell-all. But first, 30 million people in the U.S. live with diabetes, |
| 0:19.5 | and access to insulin can be very expensive. |
| 0:23.4 | More than one in five people with private insurance pay more than $35 a month for this necessary medication. |
| 0:30.8 | The U.S. Senate has a plan to cap insulin prices for some seniors, but critics say this plan would not help make insulin affordable for a |
| 0:40.2 | majority of people. Joining me to talk about this and other science stories of the week is Catherine |
| 0:46.3 | Wu, staff writer for The Atlantic based in New Haven, Connecticut. Welcome back to Science Friday, |
| 0:52.4 | Katie. Hello, it's good to be here again. |
| 0:54.6 | Nice to have you. Okay, let's start with this insulin story. What's the current status of |
| 0:59.7 | insulin access for diabetics in the U.S.? Yeah, so insulin is very, very, very expensive, |
| 1:07.4 | which is very unfortunate. As you've pointed out, this can be a life or death drug for some |
| 1:12.8 | people, especially those with type 1 diabetes who can't make insulin on their own. And as you pointed |
| 1:18.5 | out, there are some people paying way more than $35 a month for this medication. Some people are |
| 1:24.3 | paying into the hundreds per month, which can be a huge portion of their |
| 1:28.5 | paycheck. That is massive. You know, that's on par with what they may be paying for food, even |
| 1:34.1 | part of their housing. And this is much more than people elsewhere in the world pay. |
| 1:39.2 | Absolutely. So there was a study, I believe it was last year by the Rand Corporation, that |
| 1:43.6 | found that, |
| 1:49.7 | you know, average prices for a vial of insulin in the U.S. exceed prices in any other country and is about 10 times more than the global average, which is a huge gap. |
| 1:55.1 | So the Senate plan for insulin access doesn't quite solve this problem, does it? No. So, you know, obviously this bill is still |
| 2:05.4 | kind of working its way through all of the legislative red tape, but it has cleared the Senate in |
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