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[–] 142 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Canadians: invented drug and patent it freely

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

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  • [–] 124 points 11 months ago (4 children)

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

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    the OOC might be TYPE 1 which is even more dependant on insulin than type 2, because you're pancreas cant make any insulin at all. plus there also other expenses that comes with being type 1. CGM, INSULIN pumps(which are often regularly replaced because they wear out). you can sometimes tell when someones type 1, if they have a device attached to thier arm, its usually a circular button, thats the sensor(its another cost)

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  • [–] 212 points 11 months ago (6 children)

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

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  • [–] 77 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    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)

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  • [–] 49 points 11 months 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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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Even worst, my dog got it for free from the public vet university for years. They even gave us the syringes. It's the same human insulin and my dog got it for free. Guess his plan worked better than he thought... only no in the us

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  • [–] 97 points 11 months 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 🥂

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

    There is plenty of propaganda on social media to exalt the billionaires and CEOs. Instagram is especially really bad at it. I don't know why the algorithm suggest heavily to me about "entrepreneur" pages (maybe my investing platform sold my data), although some of these pages whitewash literal fraudulent and underhanded behaviours from celebrity CEOs and fraudsters, spinning their past behaviours as "another way to get rich". I also think the posts and profiles were written by bots, because the language and syntax used sound almost identical from one another, in spite of these profiles supposedly being independent from one another.

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  • [–] 72 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (38 children)

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

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  • [+] 30 points 11 months ago (6 children)
  • [+] -11 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Its not that hard especially for an American.

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  • [+] 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Australia and the US have a reciprocal agreement which makes it so any Australian who wants to emigrate to the US can, and quite a few Americans can easily move to Australia. On the America to Australia side it is always oversubscribed, so it's moderately hard to get to Australia. I wonder if timing the application is important.

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  • [–] 97 points 11 months ago (12 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.

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  • [–] 68 points 11 months ago (11 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.

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  • [–] 31 points 11 months 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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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    Don’t worry, there aren’t that many sane people in the US. A lot of them are under the impression that they’re sane because they take the “balanced” position, though, which is to say that they just choose whatever’s in between fascism and barely progressive policy while they call themselves intelligent.

    Frankly I’m not sure I’d want a bunch of people who cannot take accountability and who have such main-character energy they think that they would be allowed in while “bad” people wouldn’t be. We have enough problems with similar mindsets here in Canada and I really don’t want more of that except now they’re making it even harder to get away from our useless, conservative, Liberal(capital L) party.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    Ah yes - subjecting ideological refugeess to arbitrary purity tests, a true classic.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    Well that’s the thing, it wouldn’t be possible so the entire idea of “let us sane people come” is flawed from the start unless they truly believe that there should be a purity test and that they would pass it. Anyone who genuinely thinks that way should be immediately disqualified from immigrating based on their own idea of an ideological test.

    “I’m different though and there should be actual, real laws to permit to do particular things!” is not the position of someone who considers their community at large to any particularly special degree. And to be clear I’m all for banning hate speech and stuff because that’s a specific banned behaviour and not a specific allowed behaviour, and we have evidence to show that it can be as harmful as any physically violent attack.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    It would only be a financial drain if you were sending that money back home.

    Only if you limit your view to your nation. 'Back home' across the border it would most likely also buy food etc. And that would be fine.

    The real drain is the infinite black hole of the rich guys pockets. That is where all the money is. Don't blame people who send money to their loved ones to help, just because there is a border.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    This is correct, though the initial drain might still be too much if there was literally a big exodus all at once. Maybe if the refugees from the US distributed fairly evenly across the various countries it could work?

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  • [+] [S] 13 points 11 months ago (14 children)
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    If you don't mind sharing, did you have to pay the exit tax? Actually, what was your way out?

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (10 children)

    Aren't you still paying taxes to the USA? Just curious.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    You still have to file, but you don’t need to pay taxes unless you’re earning enough that the visa won’t be a problem.

    But, like, if you close everything out and never go back…

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    The IRS will still find you lol

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    But then what?

    Is a foreign government going to extradite you for missing paperwork and no outstanding tax debts (especially because everyone else thinks it’s nuts that we require nonresident citizens to file taxes)? I guess it’s possible, but it strikes me as very unlikely.

    But if you’re still financially attached to the US/likely to visit, they’ve got some power over you.

    I’m not a lawyer or an accountant (obviously. This is not best practices)

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  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Why would that strike you as unlikely? It's extremely likely because most countries that people would want to flee to already have extradition agreements with the US.

    All the US has to do is declare you a fugitive and those countries will pick you up and ship you back.

    Especially with how petty this administration has been.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    What do they get out of it? It’s expensive and you don’t even actually owe money. Plus, extradition agreements only cover either things that both countries consider illegal, or a set of very serious crimes, like murder, afaik.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    the one that have money to migrate to another country have done it already. buts mostly PHD level professionals, rather difficult for people who only have a ms or bs with no established career already. unless you well off enough to be able to move.

    it would probably have to be millions, or 10s of millions (around 40ish million) suddenly moving out of the us, then the usa and that would would see real impact on brain drain and economy(especially the ones in key stem sectors, at some point it will affect israel pipelines(weapons tech and research, like MIT) from university), but then again most people are too content in the usa, and the massively propagandized people us has practically pacified them, and essentially made a cultural bubble of selfishness(hate taxes, guns,,,etc. propaganda)

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  • [–] 63 points 11 months ago (9 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/

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    I know not every state can or are willing to do this

    this kind of thing scales well, i see no reason why after california has it set up, other states couldn't get insulin from them, or chip in

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I would think Big Pharma will aggressively fight against it.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    theres only 3 companies that produce it , Eli Lily, sanofi aventis and novo nordisk, they have fought aggressively through litigation in the past to prevent any insulin generic, or biosimilar to reach the market. they agreed amongst themselves to have whatever the cost they want without competing with each other.

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  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    contracting is an interesting choice of word since it could mean decreasing

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  • [+] 53 points 11 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 36 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Welcome to USA, I guess.

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

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  • [–] 68 points 11 months ago (8 children)

    Remember Remember the 4th of December

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  • [–] 42 points 11 months ago (7 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.

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  • [–] 50 points 11 months 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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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I am so, so sorry about your loss. I'm glad to hear that you were able to feel a beacon of hope last year, and that this painting was a way for you to cling on to it and feel it a little longer. I hope you find a way to keep holding on to it, and through that hope find the courage to not give up and try to support change instead whenever you can and have the strength and energy to do so. But I can't even imagine how hard that must be. And most of all, carry the love you had for your mom in your heart despite the grief, and the disgust and hate for the system that led to her demise quicker than it had to be.

    I hope you don't mind if I save that picture of yours.

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Symbols are powerful things. I'm not an American, but something that surprised me with Mangione was how people on the left and the right seemed to support him. It was a rare case of example of political unity amongst regular people.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    It was incredible how right wing pundits were so disconnected from their audience, trying to promote outrage while their audience would have been popping champaign of they could afford it

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  • [+] 27 points 11 months ago (11 children)
  • [–] 35 points 11 months ago (10 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.

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  • [–] 38 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months 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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  • [+] 5 points 11 months ago (9 children)
  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    Remember, the 1920s is long ago. Giving the patent to the equivalent of a non-profit organisation was probably better than disclaiming it, since it's easier to have one large, well-known entity that will fight off people trying to re-patent it than to disclaim it and hope that no patent clerk ever lets a fraudulent re-patent go through.

    In 1920 you couldn't just google for prior art when fighting a fraudulent patent.

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  • [+] 1 point 11 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    Nowadays you just google for other patents and done. But back then, I guess that searching for prior art was quite a lot more difficult. Gifting the patent to an university so that they defend open access to the patent sounds like a more reliable plan.

    I mean, even nowadays patents are greenlit my patent offices even though there's clear prior art (Nintendo's recent patent for catching monsters in a ball in a game comes to mind, which Nintendo would have to have patented before publishing their first game with that mechanic around 30 years ago), and even today it's really difficult and expensive to get such a clear nonsense patent invalidated.

    So difficult that e.g. Palworld opted to change the mechanic instead of fighting the patent.

    So I do understand why someone would instead gift the patent to an university under the condition that they keep access to it open, especially 100 years ago.

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  • [+] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)
  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    That logic applies identically to a valid patent.

    The difference is that in the case of transferring the patent to the university, there's a legal department at the ready to defend the patent. The same is not the case for a disclaimed patent.

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  • [+] 1 point 11 months ago* (5 children)
  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Of course, but an university owning a patent gives them the responsibility to defend it, and also incentivizes them to do so.

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  • [+] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Tbh, I am surprised that you seem to know the exact legal situation in regards to patent law in Canada of 1923, and that you have such a strong opinion on that matter.

    I would recommend you to read the corresponding Wikipedia secton where all the thinking that went into that decision is laid out quite well.

    I would venture to say that legal experts of the time at the time understood the patent law of the time a little better than some random users on Lemmy.

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  • [+] 0 points 11 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] -2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

    I did not run out of arguments, I posted a contemporary source that said everything I talked about all along.

    While you keep repeating the same talking points that might maybe hold true today but certainly aren't supported by anything contemporary. Repeating your points the same way all the time isn't "having new arguments". It's "running out of arguments but not admitting to it". And since you have been doing that in a loop for quite some time, there's no point bringing new arguments apart from "a whole bunch of lawyers from the same time came to the same conclusion multiple times in a row".

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  • [+] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] -2 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    You haven't provided any sources at all, you just ignored anything I said. So go, your turn. Post a source that says that transferring the patent to the university in 1923 was the wrong decision.

    If you know better than the lawyers they consulted back then, prove it. Back it up with something more than just made-up hot air.

    Obviously, the patent holders together with their legal council decided back then that it was the better choice because that's what they did. Or are you argueing that it never happend because it's on Wikipedia?

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