Welcome to Getting Curious. I'm Jonathan Vaness and every week I sit down for a 40-minute

conversation sometimes at SMARK that can't stop talking with a brilliant expert to learn

all about something that makes me curious. On today's episode, I'm joined by Elizabeth

Feastar, the founder and executive director of T1 International, a nonprofit led by patients

that does not accept funding from the pharmaceutical industry and is fighting to put an end to the

insulin price crisis. Today we discuss what it's like to live with type 1 diabetes and the

current crisis surrounding insulin and pharmaceutical prices and what can be done to fix it.

Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for coming. So you have an interesting

cross-Atlantic, like, origin story, share, if you don't mind. Yes, of course. So I was born and raised

in the US in a small town and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was four years old. So

that was pretty scary, kind of traumatic, but I had access to what I needed to live and survive.

Can I ask you, like, what do you remember? Like, you were four? Like, what happened with the,

like, what happened? Yeah, so I remember bits and pieces, but I had what they thought was the flu.

I was kind of, you know, the typical symptoms of type 1 are kind of flu-like. You're drinking a lot.

You're going to the bathroom a lot. You're eating a lot. And so doctors just kept saying,

oh, it's the flu. It's the flu. And eventually, finally, my mom pushed and pushed. And by then,

I was in what they call decay, diabetic ketoacidosis, which is where your body is basically putting acid

into your blood and it's extremely dangerous. So I was in the hospital for two weeks. And yeah,

just remember being really scared. My family was really scared. So that was tough. Yeah.

So you get diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and just quickly, do you know what's the difference

in type 1 and type 2? Because I've heard both. Yeah. So type 1 is an autoimmune condition. And

that means your body stops producing insulin pretty much altogether. The cells in your pancreas stop

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