Did anybody catch the first ever YouTube democratic debate last week? It was cosponsored by CNN and the cool thing about it was this: all the questions came in from Americans like you and me. Turns out two of the candidates spoke out on behalf of diabetes. Here's what they had to say...

Governor Richardson mentioned the fact that 33% of Medicare is wrapped up in diabetes costs. He suggests, "Let's have major prevention programs, and also ways that we can ensure that we find a cure." He still has not announced a plan to ensure a cure. But if he does - I'm willing to bet all of his campaign funding from Big Pharma might mysteriously disappear.

The other candidate addressing diabetes was Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Dodd's promise came after from a woman's question about stem cell research. Somehow the senator was able to plug an endeavor to "deal with diabetes". However, much like Governor Richardson - he has yet to announce a plan to cure. Politics as usual. Stay tuned for the LIVE Republican Debate on September 17th.

TuDiabetes.com is a site for people touched by diabetes. The creator of the site, Manny Hernandez, got the ball rolling on a topic of interest we all take to heart - diabetes book recommendations.

When you ask diabetics to brainstorm on a terribly intrinsic topic you get some pretty good responses. One suggested read was The Diabetes Improvement Program. This book helped a diabetic overcome depression, when the talented team of healthcare professionals could not. Other honorable mentions include: Psyching Out Diabetes, Dr. Bernstein's' Diabetes Solution, Diabesity, and Diabetes for Dummies.

Somebody actually asked something very interesting - where is the book on the evolution of diabetes treatment? Often a topic of discussion, and yet so rarely documented is the sequential events of diabetes treatment, starting with the discovery of insulin. A lull ensued from about 1930 till the boom of genetically modified human insulin, in the early 80s. Any investigative journalist willing to take a stab at it? I guarantee the book will make my must read. And Eli Lilly might actually pay you not to write it.

P.S. One reader pointed out - a chapter of Brent Hoadley's book, Too Profitable to Cure presented a chronology of the evolution of diabetes treatment.

The CafePharma message boards are for pharmaceutical sales professionals and those interested in the pharmaceutical industry. A former Lilly sales rep started a thread about Eli Lilly and the lies they've told over the years. Pro Lilly responses flooded in, as did the anti-Lilly responses. Yesterday, however, two comments seemed to hit the message board with a vengeance.

Comments #23 and #24 epitomize the anatomy of a good old fashioned debate. Comment #23 is an Eli Lilly sales rep who claims to have helped with the successful launch of rDNA insulin, and the conversion of patients on pig and cow insulin to Humulin. He remarked from the perspective of a salesman that it was a successful venture resulting in unilateral domination. In response to his yesteryear achievement - commenter #24 raised some wonderful counter-points for modern day consideration. The following paragraph summarizes the results 25 years after the market saturation of Humulin and genetically modified human insulin.

The adverse events include: (1) Complications of diabetes are increasing. (2) Dead-in-bed syndrome is up over 300%. (3) Traffic accidents caused by people using rDNA insulins are increasing (especially in Type 2). (4) rDNA insulins are producing immunogenic responses in the same manner and numbers in the diabetic population as did pig and cow insulins. (5) No long-term studies have ever been conducted to define the dangers of the synthetic insulin hormones relative to cancer and other diseases.

Of course my favorite point is the fact that recent studies have shown that the culprit in many Type 1 diabetics may actually be the human insulin antibody produced by the diabetic. This may be self-serving beyond Type 1 diabetics needing insulin - it's giving Type 2s the very same problem.