She can always get NPH and R. I still like the idea of maintaining a large stockpile of emergency R and NPH that can be made available to FUD members in emergencies, in natural disasters, whatever’s the case may be. It’s so cheap that we could literally afford to maintain an inventory of several thousand vials if we pooled resources… or even with just several hundred that’s a hell of an emergency lifeline to people in emergency situations… the syringes are more expensive than the insulin… I suppose we’d have to maintain a stock of those too
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The problem is getting it to them if they are in a natural disaster.
Well that does pose some additional challenges but we are a resourceful group. We are also well networked.
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With your truck, Harold’s boat, and Michel’s suits, we could go anywhere.
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We could also have an emergency fund to manage getting it wherever it needs to go… or even just the understanding that we’d pony up if necessary. With a couple thousand bucks you can charter a plane or a hellicopter or whatever it takes to get anything anywhere. We are the unlimiteds.
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I love all these ideas.
Re R+NPH stockpile:
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we may be better off getting an emergency fund together rather then keeping the insulin at hand (although I suppose finding some could be an issue if we needed a lot).
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we need a good wiki instruction set for using them. we used some during night supplementation at a particularly bad time, but I would be hard-pressed to write a good one myself.
Could someone with experience in using them put one together? It would have to be aimed at emergency/ low fund situation, i.e. no CGM and few BG strips to use.
Tough to say if we’d be better off with an inventory or a fund. There’s a case to be made for both. Having a fund available makes us more vulnerable to being scammed for money-- few scammers out there trying to get NPH
But if word got out we’d send money to someone’s who has an insulin emergency plenty would be willing to start pretending
Maybe a combination of the two somehow.
We could establish a board of trustees:)
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I didn’t think of that.
The problem with insulin stockpile is: (a) it needs to be shipped and normally insulated and (b) it goes bad after a while. Even though we know that it may still be a good for long periods after that, I am not sure if we can deal with the liability of it 
Also, it would be a heck of a lot faster to send money.
But I now realize, after your comment, that just sending money is not the right solution. I wonder if it is possible to pre-pay an insulin purchase at a pharmacy?
I wonder if a pharmacy would take insulin back for a refund, i.e. if it is possible to turn a recently purchased vial on insulin into cash.
All good points. A lot to consider. I don’t think just having a prepay agreement with a pharmacy accomplishes as many goals as actually physically having the insulin in some ways. If we have an account at cvs for example and a massive hurricane wipes out the gulf coast presumably the cvs is going to be closed… whereas we could still physically get insulin there. Or if there is a supply chain disruption caused by any number of things… acts of war, natural disaster etc etc. might be that bird in hand is better.
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I agree that it does not help for natural catastrophy. It’s only for individuals running out of insulin and money that it could be a solution if at all.
I also agree that bird in hand may come in handy.
It’s not like we have any shortage of disposable foam coolers and gel packs to ship insulin in either;). Although I’d argue that that’s all unnecessary in a real emergency… it’s probably still good form in most cases
Regarding the liability, that’s he benefit of R and NPH… as they’re non prescription items I don’t think there’s much more liability involved than if I sent you a bottle of Benadryl tablets… I think the liability is actually only increased if we directly provide instructions on how to use it…
Distribution in case of natural catastrophy
In the past, we have discussed the fact that several of us may be ready to drive down to an affected area. If we are serious about doing something like this, I think that distribution, if thought out beforehand, is not impossible by any means. Some thoughts:
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We will need to both go to some places and also be available in some places (or set up a stash with another entity).
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Doing regular rounds to primary shelters is an obvious first step
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We can inform primary responders networks, when arriving, that we will have insulin available, and that we can be found in specific locations.
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We can give the same info to local radio and TV news stations so that they can let PWDs know.
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If there are stations where people can pick up others types of supplies such food, being available there would be a good thing.
We can’t afford lots of basal and fast acting insulin, but R/NPH I think we could raise money for. We do need to produce an appropriate MO to use them though.
You are still thinking natural disaster, when I was thinking an individual running out.
Insulin is insulin either way. I was more thinking about being able to take care of our own members in times of an emergency… like AAA. (Or AA for that matter;) if we’re talking about going to local news stations and shelters in disasters advertising that we have insulin we are going to have to operate on a pretty grand scheme and think about a large scale here— like thousands of vials and tens of thousands of syringes… on that scale there are probably larger NPOs better equipped than us…
Where we shine is our small size, small enough to be nimble, tight knit network, and ability to get things done and make things happen on a small scale
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If you look at our map, we can get insulin to almost anyone in the U.S. quickly, except for the midwest.
I see. I am not sure that would make sense then. We will only have a very small number of members (1, 2, 3?) affected in any catastrophy area at any time. Getting several members to drive 1-2,000+ miles one-way and maintaining an all-year stash seems uneconomical when there are other emergency organizations that will distribute supplies.
There only are, I think, 1-2 insulin-dependent persons per 100 in the US. If we assume that 1 of 5 of those may need insulin in a catastrophy (the others have managed to hold to their insulin), then that means about 3 per 1000. For an area where 500,000 people are affected, we are talking 1,500 people needing insulin. Walmart sells R and NPH for $25 per bottle, so the retail price would be $50 per person – altogether $75,000 per catastrophy. Not small, but not unraisable.
I guess it depends upon what we think we want to do. For me, I like bigger goals rather than smaller ones 
No 75,000 is very reasonable to be able to really intervene and save lives on a grand scale. At those kinds of cost savings though we would need some kind of deal with a pharmacy to keep our stock fresh. I’m not throwing away $75,000 worth of insulin and buying new every 2 years… and at that sort of a scale we’d be expected to be providing legit non expired insulin if we’re showing up at shelters and news channels.
Check out that Dr ponder fb post I shared where he needed an airplane e to fly insulin to PR. He might be someone to consult with since apparently he got 1500 to PR just via word of mouth within a couple hours
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From the map (above post), it looks like the Midwest is OK, but the Great Plains are harder: W of the Midwest and E of the Rockies.
Do we have any pilots? That’s on my to-do list
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