1. When I was on Animal-Drived Insulins, the cost was approximately no more than $20.00/vial. Now the people at getcanadiandrugs.com are offering Hypurin(Pork Deived Insulin) at $131.99.
WHAT HAPPENED?
There should not be a profit mark-up for any Life-Sustaining Drug!! Insulin is Life-Sustaining.
I agree that people with Diabetes should have a choice as to Animal-Derived Insulin or rDNA Derived Insulin.
My concern now however with Animal-Derived Insulin is "Mad Cow Disease."
When I was on Animal-Derived Insulin there was no Mad Cow Disease because diseased animals who "passed on" were not ground up into the Feed in-order to save $$.
Greed creates many problems for most people.

Posted at 10:43PM on Jul 26th 2007 by BetterCell

2. Better Cell, with the current revelations about food safety (or lack thereof), you would be better served worrying about grocery-store offerings than Mad Cow Disease from animal-derived insulin. In a paper justifying the rDNA process for Aventis products, it was noted that bovine-derived products used as nutrient sources in the master cell culture would pose no risk to the rDNA insulin end-product because after the fourth stage of HPLC, all risks for BSE (Mad Cow Disease) would be eliminated. The interpretation here is that nutrient medium (for rDNA insulin) uses brain, heart, lung and other bovine material, all of which are more suspect as a source for BSE than that posed by an organ like the pancreas. ALL animal-derived insulins go through this same HPLC process, and the risk of BSE is miniscule.

In fact, you might want to consider that since we no longer have batch-testing related to rDNA insulins, the percent of impurities in the rDNA insulins could include protein prions of unknown creation that would further damage health. The rDNA process is by no means perfect and does not always produce a perfect hormone molecule. When your body has an autoimmune response to one of these new rDNA insulins, you may want to acknowledge that the human body IS a very good piece of “scientific” equipment related to recognizing foreign proteins.

Mad Cow Disease (BSE)--in some circles called a Bull Sh*t Excuse--has been used to red flag natural insulins while obfuscating production problems with rDNA insulins; a useful fear-mongering technique, skillfully employed by the insulin cartel. Interestingly, Novo even uses bird feathers in some of their production processes.

Posted at 10:00AM on Jul 27th 2007 by Melody