Task force takes Big Pharma’s cue to push diabetes testing
Imagine waking up every morning and popping a dangerous diabetes pill — or injecting insulin into your belly.
Only you’re not diabetic. And you never have been.
It sounds like it could never happen — but it could be the new reality for countless Americans sooner than you think.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has just issued a bizarre new set of blood sugar guidelines that call for everything from intense personal training to getting just about every American adult screened for diabetes.
But behind these new recommendations — which will be followed by thousands of doctors — is something much more sinister that nobody’s talking about.
And that’s a plot to make Big Pharma a fortune by getting millions of us to take diabetes meds.
Whether we’re actually diabetic or not.
If you’re between the ages of 40 and 70 and are even just a little overweight, the USPSTF has new marching orders for you.
They want you to drop everything and practically blow through stop signs to get your blood sugar tested at your doctor’s office.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why ask millions of healthy Americans — people with no history of blood sugar problems — to waste their time and money getting screened for diabetes?
Well, when you see the two options that all this testing will leave you with (I call them dumb and dumber) you’ll understand what this whole scam is really about.
Option 1: Dumb
If your blood sugar is high — which, by the way, can be a totally normal and short-term occurrence — USPSTF first wants you to try “intensive lifestyle interventions.”
Now I’m sure you’re wondering exactly what that means, and I was, too. Fortunately, USPSTF member Dr. Michael Pignone cleared it all up.
Apparently, USPSTF is calling for several, grueling sessions with “trained educators” who can intensify your exercise routine or force you to eat better. You know, like a personal trainer who screams at you while you’re on the treadmill or shocks you with a few hundred volts any time you look at a muffin.
Have you ever heard anything so silly in your life? Why would USPSTF recommend something that literally none of us will do?
Well, these guys and gals aren’t as naive as they seem. And that brings us to…
Option 2: Dumber
The fact is, the USPSTF knows that when your blood sugar is high your doctor isn’t going to prescribe you a few sessions with Jillian Michaels or a life coach.
He’s going to prescribe you drugs.
And that’s what this is really about — using screening to create millions of new patients for diabetes meds.
The mainstream has been lowering blood sugar guidelines for years so more people could qualify for drugs. But even that wasn’t enough to keep Big Pharma happy.
You see, just last year, the CDC announced that the number of new cases of type 2 diabetes is leveling off. And that has plenty of drug giants running scared.
So they’re doing everything they can to start pitching meds to the 86 million Americans who aren’t diabetic, but may have high blood sugar or fall into that “pre-diabetic” gray zone.
If Big Pharma can get even a small share of those folks screened and on drugs, they’ll make billions.
Just last year, Novo Nordisk launched a massive marketing campaign called Ask.Screen.Know. that encouraged millions of Americans to get screened for high blood sugar.
They were trying to shake the tree for new customers — and it looks like USPSTF is copying the strategy almost to the letter.
And Sanofi is making a fortune pitching its expensive insulin drug Lantus to pre-diabetics as a way to “delay progression” to full-blown diabetes.
These new recommendations aren’t about science — they’re a marketing plan, plain and simple. One that will bully healthy people into getting tests they don’t need for diseases they don’t have.
And one that seems a lot more interested in protecting drug companies’ bottom lines than adding any more candles to your birthday cake.
Sources:
“Task force urges screening of overweight adults for high blood sugar” Rae Ellen Bichell, October 26, 2015, NPR, npr.org
