July 29th 2019

By Common Dreams staff

Common Dreams

Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders is heading to Canada on Sunday with a caravan of Type 1 diabetes patients seeking cheaper insulin to highlight the "corruption" of pharmaceutical companies and the toll taken on Americans who can't afford the medicine.

CTV News reported:

(Sanders) waved to crowds as he entered the Olde Walkerville Pharmacy in Windsor, Ont. on Sunday.

Sanders stood next to a mother who said she spends roughly US $1,500 a month for insulin for her son. But in Windsor, she paid US $1,000 for a six-month supply.

A vial of insulin which Type 1 diabetics use to regulate their blood sugar costs about US $340 in the United States -- roughly 10 times the Canadian price. An American Diabetes Association spokesperson previously told CTVNews.ca the average price of insulin has nearly tripled between 2002 and 2013.

"People are dying," Sanders earlier told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union," in an interview hosted from Detroit, Michigan.  He said the cost of insulin in the US has "soared in recent years" and "there is strong evidence that there is price fixing, that these companies simultaneously raise the prices at outrageous levels far, far, far more than the cost of production."

He accused drug company executives of "corruption" and "unbelievable greed." In Canada, he said, insulin is "one-tenth of the price."

"One out of four people are rationing their insulin, and people are dying. That is unacceptable in the United States of America," he claims.

Sanders said if elected president, "we're going to take on the pharmaceutical industry, we're going to have an attorney general who is going to deal with the incredible concentration of ownership and we're going to use anti-trust legislation."

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