“Banting’s Ghost” is a movie project about how the cost of insulin is affecting people with diabetes, by a young documentary filmmaker named Stephen Richert:
Stephen Richert was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 16. He is a well-known climber, the founder of Living Vertical, a site that uses rock climbing as an inspiration to be unlimited: he is very much one of us! He once spent 365 days climbing peaks once a day to raise awareness for diabetes:
In 2012, a Type 1 Diabetic climber and his wife decided to abandon the comforts of conventional life–selling all their stuff to embrace their fate traveling and climbing across North America. Their goal: complete one year, climbing every single day consecutively with no rest days while living out of a rusty 1987 Toyota Tercel and traveling–to demonstrate that no challenge is insurmountable–even an incurable, chronic illness.
Stephen Richert is a talented movie maker who has received prizes for some of his work. He has dedicated a good part of his life to grassroots work around diabetes: I have a lot of admiration for people who are willing to dedicated some of their life to a cause, and feel that they deserve to be supported by people like me, who haven’t.
Who is Banting? Frederick Banting is one of the discoverers of insulin – he got a Nobel prize for it. If that is not remarkable enough, he sold his portion of the patent rights to insulin to the University of Toronto for $1, because he felt that insulin deserved to belong to the world, and that he should not profit from it. What would he say today?
We all read, only a few weeks ago, the story of Shane Patrick Boyle, who died of DKA because he could not afford insulin. I would like to believe that, if more can see with their own eyes direct testimony on how insulin prices affect some people with diabetes in our great country, many more will be wanting to see changes. I would like to see changes: I can’t think of a better way to influence this issue than by funding Stephen Richert to create a portfolio of real persons’ stories around insulin prices.
This is what Stephen Richert has to say about his project:
Here is an excellent story about Stephen Richert in Healthline:
Here is an interview of his in Diabetes Daily:
https://www.diabetesdaily.com/blog/living-verticals-steve-richert-on-eating-keto-climbing-mountains-and-a-new-family-adventure-255987/
You can fund Stephen Richert’s project, Banting’s Ghost, here:
https://www.patreon.com/livingvertical
I hope you consider supporting him in his new project. My wife and I have agreed to fund him at the highest level of support on this funding site for a year in the name of F.U. Diabetes. We feel that he is a great example of being unlimited by diabetes, and would like to showcase him as an example to our T1D son. What better way is there for us to do so than by supporting his work?