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Islets of Hope diabetes industry press releases |
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For immediate release New nonprofit offers a unique approach to helping diabetic patients with the cost of their medications Press Release: SlashDrugCosts.com - August 30, 2007. My name is Jim McMahon and I am the administrator for the nonprofit Slash Drug Costs website (www.slashdrugcosts.org/forum/index.php). We have the simple mission of bringing down the costs of prescription and over the counter drugs for consumers. This is accomplished by giving a place for people to share their methods of reducing overall medication costs and directly answering requests for help from anyone. We are young but I think we have been very successful. There are hundreds of posts to help people on our website. We have two areas where people can ask for specific help based upon their individual problems. We have drastically cut the costs for everyone who has requested such help. Unlike other online resources that help people obtain needed medications, we do not discriminate against anyone based on their income, assets, or whether they have insurance. Our services are completely free to anyone. We present reasonable methods to reduce costs that patients can discuss with their doctors. People should not be required to be poverty stricken just to get the medications they need. My father was type 1 diabetic who got it when he was a teenager. He took as good of care of himself as was possible in the late 1930’s until he died from complications at age 42. In those days you had to use inaccurate urine test strips and did not have the range of insulins and medications that are available today. He never had a bad infection but he did go blind a few years before he died. I used to be one of those people who never required medications and never thought I would. I took good care of myself. Watching my father slowly degrade taught me to watch my diet and have blood sugar tests done every three months. I thought I was safe. Unfortunately I settled into the common desk job lifestyle that included little exercise. Nine years ago I got results showing I had become a type II diabetic. I did not want medications for it so I tightened my diet and started exercising. Over the next four months my blood sugar readings averaged 123 and I thought I had it licked. I get my medical treatment at Veteran’s Administration Hospitals (VA). There I was given Cyproheptadine for an off-label experimental use and it appears my islet cells were killed. After 5 days I became a brittle insulin dependent diabetic and no diabetic medications helped. I have had no sign of internal insulin production since. I searched the internet and found Dr. Lawrence Fisher, a prominent diabetes researcher, who had used that drug to induce diabetes in test animals for a number of his studies. I contacted him. He told me that large amounts of Cyproheptadine should never be given to a person. I connected my local doctor with Dr. Fisher. The VA quickly stopped experimenting with Cyproheptadine in that fashion. The Islets of Hope website (www.isletsofhope.com) was the first place where I found information about Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA). My symptoms make it seem likely that is what I had before the administration of Cyproheptadine 9 years ago. It might explain why several people before me got the experimental treatment using Cyproheptadine without inducing insulin-dependent diabetes. Since then I have had great difficulty controlling my blood sugars even though I have tried every combination of insulin available. My diabetes has caused problems to flare that I never even knew I had. The result is that I am now very uncomfortable with the large number of medications I require. My wife, who also requires a lot of expensive medications, began researching on drug interactions and cost reduction methods in order for both of us to remain safe and be able to stay on the medications we needed. At this same time, our aging parents were requiring more and more expensive medications. The amount of research we personally had to do to find the most affordable and safe methods to save was becoming overwhelming. Various health care professionals helped us accrue a pretty huge amount of knowledge about reducing costs. We found other people with the same problem and together we shared our methods of saving money with each other. The nonprofit Slash Drug Costs Organization was not even an idea until the fall of 2006. We realized that if we could help each other reduce medication costs then it would be wonderful to share this knowledge to help others. It was easy to see that if more people added their knowledge then the extra ideas would reduce costs further and help even more people. We made choices that most business people would say doomed us before we started. We could not afford to create a standard nonprofit organization. Also, we did not want our suggestions on how to save money to be biased, so we developed the nonprofit Slash Drug Costs Organization using our own quite limited funds. The best way to freely share knowledge in our age is by using the internet. We created our website with free software and run it using very little money. It also allows the organization to exist without an office or even a phone. Everyone with the Slash Drug Costs Organization is an unpaid volunteer. Also, since no money is ever accepted and no one is paid; we have none of the paperwork that often bogs down many groups. An unconventional decision made the Slash Drug Costs Organization completely unique. Unlike any other web site that helps people get the medications they need, we decided to help anyone. It does not matter if they are poor or not, they will get help. Some of the people who come to us must make daily choices between using their money for the most basic living expenses or for paying for their prescriptions that keep them alive. Some people with fairly high incomes have great needs also. Lifesaving drugs can cost over $120,000.00 a year and many are not covered by most insurance plans. Many senior citizens have very low incomes but their assets make them ineligible for help from most medication assistance programs. Almost all such programs will not help people with any type of medication insurance, including those on Medicare Part D. Even if a person does not have insurance then the income requirements exclude almost everyone in a great many programs. A single person household who works 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, and is earning $7.75 per hour is often not qualified because of earning too much. We found that people cannot depend upon their doctors reduce medication costs to their minimum. A 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation poll indicated that about half of all doctors ignore the soaring medication costs of treatment. Among the reasons named; 53% of them said that they don't have enough time and 51% said they don't know how to help patients lower their out-of-pocket costs. Those doctors, who do try to help, rarely have the breadth of knowledge about reducing costs that we have already compiled. Government studies have shown that people with life threatening illnesses usually do not fill their prescriptions. Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. die each year because they do not fill their prescriptions because they cost too much. People without major symptoms would rather spend their money elsewhere. There are a great many sites and programs for the extremely poor. We do not believe a person needs to be extremely poverty stricken in order to afford the medications they require. That is why we help anyone. The knowledge about saving this much on medications is valuable to a great many people. Organizations typically would call this an asset and treat it like money in the bank. Instead our group decided that ALL our information needed to be free for people to use in any way they want (We do not even require them to say where the ideas came from). If there was any type of ownership of the knowledge then people might limit the ideas they share. This actually was an easy decision because the organizers share a strong belief that information should be free. The web site was officially launched by word of mouth in November of 2006. It was a trial balloon that allowed people to use it to both save money and also to provide their own ideas. Inputs from these pioneering users have provided the comments we needed to make this site to be as useful and simple to use as possible. Since the initial launch, we have made a large number of changes to make our ideas usable by as many people as possible, even an internet novice. For example, double-click on any word and the definition for it will pop up. We did this to make everything easy to understand for everyone, even if they have little knowledge about health matters or medications. In response to requests; various subjects have been removed, other subjects were merged together, and others subjects were added. The greatest change was to provide direct answers to people’s questions and let people post their list of drugs in order to get specific inputs on how to save money. This last change has required the largest amount of volunteer time. Every appeal for help usually requires dozens of hours to reduce costs to the lowest possible. We spread the time generously between many volunteers so no one person is overloaded. As our site becomes better known, we expect to get ever-greater numbers of requests for help. This will require more and more volunteers to fill these needs. Our volunteers are a great group of people who have joined for various reasons. One volunteer puts it this way: “What better way to help and be able to do help people from the comforts of your home than this.” Another states, “I really enjoy helping others find ways to cut costs”. And others, after finding solutions to their own medication needs feel it is a great way to contribute and give back to others in need. Dlcnurse, one of our volunteers has this to say: “When I first came to the Slash Drug Costs Organization site, it was curiosity that made me actually go to the site. But after viewing and reading, I felt that here were people that were just as frustrated as I am trying to figure out how to pay for medications. I could actually share my own knowledge and expertise and feel good about it in the process. I have been a volunteer now for about nine months and I really enjoy it.” Volunteering can often help change people’s lives for the better. It is very healthy to interact with people who provide a very positive environment. A healthy lifestyle greatly reduces the need for quite a number of medications and therefore is a great way to save money. Many people start by volunteering somewhere that gives them a strong sense of satisfaction and fits their emotional and professional needs. Volunteers are able to offer their friendship and experiences to help others. The feeling of pride from having a greater positive impact on the world can help people find purpose in their lives. This can increase self-confidence and self-esteem. It can provide a good foundation upon which to build a healthy life. Many people find our training programs quite useful even if they do not plan to volunteer with us. People who might need to get a job or want to change jobs can use our various “Certificates of Training” to show aptitude in various areas. Our free training program can enhance your professional skills, personal skills, and fulfill a desire to help others. The training is short and simple. Also, we do not grade people in any way. Instead we assist them on a one to one basis about how to reduce people’s costs, easily and effortlessly. Our “Certificates of Training” are more useful than others received elsewhere. Upon request we will send a person their quality 8” x 10” parchment certificate suitable for framing that has their name and nickname on it. (Quality certificate frames can be bought for only a few dollars at many major stores.) If a person brings any of our “Certificate of Training” parchments to a prospective employer he can IMMEDIATELY verify it is authentic. He needs only to log in as an employer and go to our “Certificate of Training” Subject area. Under a topic with your nickname will be large images of all of the certificates you have received. This eliminates any doubt about possible forgeries. If you want to view a sample certificate just go to: www.slashdrugcosts.org/images/SampleCert.jpg. Note: Our training area and other certificates are not visible to people who do not request to volunteer. We find volunteering is an excellent way for people who are looking for ways to enhance their personal or professional lives, for those who are currently disabled, are unemployed, or need new skills. If they want a standard employment; they can move at their own speed towards the type of job they desire. This provides training and "work" experience (although it is enjoyable for us.) at home while spending as many or as few hours a week as you wish. We place no requirements from our volunteers for time spent on our site. You will receive regular "Longevity Certificates" as long as you are a volunteer. These can also be valuable to show prospective employers or put in a resume'. Also, for outstanding performance we have special types of “Certificates of Appreciation” that can be sent on parchment for your own use. The benefits of volunteering can provide so many rewards in today’s environment; especially with the advent of the internet and the freedom to volunteer from the comforts of your own home. We have many opportunities on the Slash Drug Costs Organization site that can help you accomplish your goals whether it is for professional, personal, or other reasons. If you would like to become a volunteer please contact our moderators at SlashDrugCosts@Gmail.com.
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| Contact Us | About IOH | Our Mission | Elizabeth's Story | About the Founder | Join IOH | How To Help | Advertise | Privacy Statement | Site Index | Page Updated 08/29/2007 |
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