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He lost his insurance and turned to cheaper form of insulin. It was a fatal decision.
Source: Washington Post
He lost his insurance and turned to cheaper form of insulin. It was a fatal decision.
By Antonio Olivo August 3 at 1:35 PM
Josh Wilkerson was alone, in sleeping quarters above the Northern Virginia dog kennel where he worked, when he suffered a series of strokes that would prove fatal.
He’d aged out of his stepfather’s health insurance plan on his 26th birthday and eventually switched to over-the-counter insulin. Like many other diabetics his age, he could not afford the prescription brand he needed.
A few hours after taking another dose of the lower-grade medication that June day in Leesburg, Wilkerson was in the throes of a diabetic coma — his blood sugar level 17 times higher than what is considered normal.
His death at age 27 illustrates the worst-case scenario for thousands of lower-income people living with diabetes in the United States who depend on over-the-counter insulin that — for $25 a vial at Walmart — sells for one-tenth of what the more effective version costs.
“It’s very hard,” said his fiancee, Rose Walters, 27, who, like Wilkerson, was born with a congenital form of the disease known as Type 1 diabetes. “How many more young Type 1 diabetes patients have to die before something finally changes?”
-snip-
By Antonio Olivo August 3 at 1:35 PM
Josh Wilkerson was alone, in sleeping quarters above the Northern Virginia dog kennel where he worked, when he suffered a series of strokes that would prove fatal.
He’d aged out of his stepfather’s health insurance plan on his 26th birthday and eventually switched to over-the-counter insulin. Like many other diabetics his age, he could not afford the prescription brand he needed.
A few hours after taking another dose of the lower-grade medication that June day in Leesburg, Wilkerson was in the throes of a diabetic coma — his blood sugar level 17 times higher than what is considered normal.
His death at age 27 illustrates the worst-case scenario for thousands of lower-income people living with diabetes in the United States who depend on over-the-counter insulin that — for $25 a vial at Walmart — sells for one-tenth of what the more effective version costs.
“It’s very hard,” said his fiancee, Rose Walters, 27, who, like Wilkerson, was born with a congenital form of the disease known as Type 1 diabetes. “How many more young Type 1 diabetes patients have to die before something finally changes?”
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/he-lost-his-insurance-and-turned-to-cheaper-form-of-insulin-it-was-a-fatal-decision/2019/08/02/106ee79a-b24d-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html
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