@LillyPad CEO David Ricks's open letter blames insulin prices on recent changes the healthcare system. This plainly ignores the CENTURY-LONG abuse of the diabetic community, which is the subject of @DiabetesIncBook. lilly.com/who-we-are/bus…
To be clear, @LillyPad had malicious intentions from the beginning. The company wasting no time trying to gain a monopoly on newly discovered insulin, at the expense of dying diabetics. t1international.com/blog/2019/04/1…
As early as 1941, @LillyPad, along with Sharpes and Dhome and E. R. Squibb and Sons, was charged with violating anti-trust laws. t1international.com/blog/2019/04/1…
In 1980, while still making animal insulin, @LillyPad and @novonordisk were scolded by the FTC for conspiring with foreign and domestic meat firms to fix the price of pancreas glands. They wanted to maximize profits on insulin at EVERY production stage. books.google.com/books?id=f6JZM…
By this point, @LillyPad and @novonordisk were already dissatisfied with sourcing insulin from animals. They couldn't mass-produce it and capture a global market--estimated to be worth around $400 million. @ColeenFuller diabetes-inc.com/biotechnology
So they developed biosynthetic insulin. To convince regulators of the need for an insulin that in no way improved upon existing therapies (a fact the FDA admitted!), they claimed w/out evidence there was an impending shortage of pancreata, which would leave millions w/o insulin. 
They also claimed fewer ppl would have allergic reactions to "human insulin" -- because, they said, it was identical to the hormone secreted by a healthy pancreas. This, too, was unsubstantiated, as Stephen Hall discusses in his book, Invisible Frontiers.
Then @LillyPad and @novonordisk forced ppl onto newer, pricer "human" ("Walmart") insulin. Thousands experienced serious reactions, ranging from muscle and joint pain to hypoglycemia unawareness. This insulin gave rise to the now-common term "dead in bed." diabetes-inc.com/documentary-so…
Three class actions emerged, and ppl begged @LillyPad and @NovoNordisk not to withdraw animal insulin. The manufacturers told them to f--- off. (See this letter to a pleading mother.) They were set on wiping out small producers and capturing global market. drive.google.com/file/d/11Sq-xH…
Desperate diabetics appealed to the big diabetes orgs, like @DiabetesUK and @AmDiabetesAssn, who investigated, only to suppress their findings of widespread harm and publicly malign plaintiffs, calling them "emotional." theguardian.com/uk/1999/mar/09…
Doctors, too, failed to support those suffering adverse reactions, blaming patients' "poor attitudes" toward the new product. This created long-lasting tension between doctors and patients.
There are plenty more skeletons in @LillyPad and @novonordisk's closets. And there's plenty more to say about how big advocacy orgs and the medical profession have utterly failed the diabetic community. Follow @DiabetesIncBook for more. #insulin4all
