Man Dies After Taking Cheaper Insulin to Save Money
After aging out of his family health insurance and switching to a cheaper over-the-counter insulin sold at Walmart, a young man with type 1 diabetes has died.
Josh Wilkerson was 27 when he died this past June, The Independent reported Monday. When he turned 26 and became too old to remain on his stepfather’s health insurance, his other option was health insurance provided by his workplace, a dog kennel in Virginia. But that plan didn’t cover his $1,200 per month insulin costs. So in late 2018 he began using the ReliOn brand insulin sold over the counter at Walmart, which costs $25 a vial.
This type of insulin is not the same kind Wilkerson had been using before. ReliOn is called “human insulin” because it is manufactured using the DNA code for making human insulin and grown inside bacteria cells. Before switching to ReliOn, Wilkerson was using analog insulin, a newer-generation insulin that is similar to human insulin but genetically altered to make it quicker-acting. Human insulin therefore lowers blood sugar levels much slower than analog insulin does — it can take hours to work while analog insulin works in minutes.
Immediately prior to his death, Wilkerson agreed to stay overnight at the dog kennel for a week to earn some extra money. During the second night, he told his fiancée, Rose Walters (who also has type 1 diabetes and had been taking ReliOn), over the phone that his stomach didn’t feel well, but he would take more insulin.
The next morning, Walters realized she hadn’t heard from Wilkerson and called him, but he didn’t pick up. She went to the kennel and found him unconscious. Doctors said he had multiple strokes and was in a vegetative state. His blood sugar was reportedly 17 times higher than normal. He was removed from a ventilator five days later.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/man-dies-after-taking-cheaper-insulin-to-save-money/ar-AAFnPcp?li=BBnb7Kz
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