Diabetic prepared to die for Brexit

psychopomp1

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Saying something is one thing and is easy in the passion of the moment, doing it deliberately is quite another.
 
I saw an article saying that many drugs cannot be stockpiled with insulin being one of them. How odd that the insulin we keep in the fridge for our son has an expiry date if kept refrigerated of a touch over 2 years (28 days out of fridge at room temp). So expensive to store yes but impossible no.
 
There are a number of types of insulin. I'm sure some of them will have shorter expiry dates.

But there still won't be a shortage.
 
European drugs companies are not going to stop selling drugs to the UK if Brexit happens. Too much money involved methinks.
 
The UK is the EUs biggest market bar none. The EU need us more than we need them. Their economies are failing due to their imposition of fortress europe, even though the WTO have smashed down a lot of their trade barriers and quotas etc. Why anyone can feel that this country needs a deal with them is for the birds. The EU has no trade deal with either the US or China but that doesn't stop the €billions of trade between the EU and these country's.
This nation needs an injection of faith and confidence and get a no deal brexit done.
 
The UK is the EUs biggest market bar none. The EU need us more than we need them.
Just had to make one minor factual correction.
"The UK is the EUs biggest export market bar one, the US."

Looking at the trade figures to allow people to make their own mind up on who needs the other more.....

The UK accounts for around 8% of the exports of EU countries.
The value of these exports is £341bn - or put another way around 2.8% of the EUs GDP.

The EU accounts for around 44% of the UKs exports.
The value of these exports is £274bn - or put another way around 12.7% of the UKs GDP.

The UK has a trade deficit with the EU of around £67bn.
That is equivalent to around 0.5% of the EU's GDP.

Given the above, if there is disruption to trade between the UK and the EU then this will proportionately impact the UK far more than the EU.

These figures primarily reflect how small the UK economy is compared to the rest of the EU. The UK Gross Domestic Product is around $2.8 trillion ($2,800 billion) while that of the EU, excluding the UK, is around $16tn. (Not far off 6 times larger that of the UK.) Another way of putting this is that the UK accounts for around 15% of the GDP of the current EU, including the UK.

I have also seen some people mention that the German car market is heavily dependent upon exports to the UK. Having a look at figures for BMW, the UK accounts for 9.6% of the cars that BMW sells - behind China (25.7%), the US (14.2%) and of course Germany (12.5%).
 
European drugs companies are not going to stop selling drugs to the UK if Brexit happens. Too much money involved methinks.

Of course they won't. This isn't the issue. The issue is the increase in shipping time due to loss of port efficiencies due to increased bureaucracy. The drugs WILL arrive, they might just arrive past their useful shelf life which will then create shortages.
 
The drugs WILL arrive, they might just arrive past their useful shelf life which will then create shortages.
Which drugs have this short shelf life that you are referring to?

Insulin will last for 28 days at room temperature (or from when opened).

Refrigerated it will last until its expiry date. How long is that you might wonder? Well at the weekend I picked up my latest prescription and I just had a look.

Humulin - October....... Oh that's not good. No wait. October 2021

And my other insulin I take, Humalog - July 2021

If we end up with lorries carrying insulin that are delayed for two years then we might have problems. :p
 
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Which drugs have this short shelf life that you are referring to?
Drugs are not the only thing needed in the NHS.
This essential item has an extremely short shelf life and cannot be stockpiled.

Unlike many medicines, radioactive isotopes cannot be stockpiled. As soon as they are produced they begin to decay. The longer the delay, the smaller the dose of useful isotope that remains.

Technetium-99m (99mTc). This extremely useful element has a half-life of just six hours, and so is transported to hospitals and radiopharmacies in the form of ‘technetium-99m generators’. These devices contain the decaying parent element, molybdenum-99 (99Mo) which has a half-life of sixty-six hours.

Approximately one million UK patients each year rely on radioisotope procedures. The UK is not self-sufficient in these materials, importing around 80% of the medical radioisotopes we use. Most of these come from the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Dr Dickson noted that if imported radioisotopes suffered delays then “the guarantee of supply will not be there and what comes out at the other end will not be, essentially, what we paid for. f you delay that at customs or through border issues, you have paid for 100 but you get 50 doses. You therefore cannot treat patients adequately…and you are incurring a massive cost for the NHS”.

Dr Dickson also cast doubt on the government’s plan to transport radioisotopes into the country by air, pointing to the lack of specialist handlers and airport capacity.
Medical Radioisotopes and No-Deal Brexit

Since the UK has no reactors capable of producing Mo-99, British hospitals have so far relied on weekly supplies by lorry from reactors in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Five nuclear reactors in Europe provide around 60% of the world’s production of Mo-99, which is used to produce Technetium 99, the most widely used diagnostic isotope.
BMA Euratom and ensuring the continued uninterrupted cross-border supply of nuclear materials, including for medical use, post-Brexit


Also falling into the short shelf life/no stockpiling category are most radioisotopes for oncology.
The UK also imports Radium-223 from Norway to treat bone tumours, Iodine-123 from Belgium to treat thyroid cancer, and both Iridium-192 to treat cervical and prostate cancer, and Lutetium-177, to treat neuroendocrine tumours, from the Netherlands.

“The problem is, our supply chains are built around lorries from the Channel,” Dickson says. “It would take a substantial, expensive and time-consuming process to reorganise all those supply chains, but we can’t consider the process until we have a clear picture on the post-Brexit deal.”
Brexit's latest no-deal crisis? Decaying radioactive medicine


Iodine 123 - Half life 13.2 hours
Lutetium-177 - half Life 6.7 days
Radium 223 - half life 11.4 days
Iridium-192 - half life 74 days
 
Well done, you've found something which does have a short shelf life.

Any reason we can't just fly it in? We are talking about things that have relatively little usage and in small quantities too.

Meanwhile, do you accept that diabetics have nothing to worry about, contrary to the scare stories that keep being pushed?
 
Drugs are not the only thing needed in the NHS.
This essential item has an extremely short shelf life and cannot be stockpiled.

Unlike many medicines, radioactive isotopes cannot be stockpiled. As soon as they are produced they begin to decay. The longer the delay, the smaller the dose of useful isotope that remains.

Technetium-99m (99mTc). This extremely useful element has a half-life of just six hours, and so is transported to hospitals and radiopharmacies in the form of ‘technetium-99m generators’. These devices contain the decaying parent element, molybdenum-99 (99Mo) which has a half-life of sixty-six hours.

Approximately one million UK patients each year rely on radioisotope procedures. The UK is not self-sufficient in these materials, importing around 80% of the medical radioisotopes we use. Most of these come from the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Dr Dickson noted that if imported radioisotopes suffered delays then “the guarantee of supply will not be there and what comes out at the other end will not be, essentially, what we paid for. f you delay that at customs or through border issues, you have paid for 100 but you get 50 doses. You therefore cannot treat patients adequately…and you are incurring a massive cost for the NHS”.

Dr Dickson also cast doubt on the government’s plan to transport radioisotopes into the country by air, pointing to the lack of specialist handlers and airport capacity.
Medical Radioisotopes and No-Deal Brexit

Since the UK has no reactors capable of producing Mo-99, British hospitals have so far relied on weekly supplies by lorry from reactors in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Five nuclear reactors in Europe provide around 60% of the world’s production of Mo-99, which is used to produce Technetium 99, the most widely used diagnostic isotope.
BMA Euratom and ensuring the continued uninterrupted cross-border supply of nuclear materials, including for medical use, post-Brexit


Also falling into the short shelf life/no stockpiling category are most radioisotopes for oncology.
The UK also imports Radium-223 from Norway to treat bone tumours, Iodine-123 from Belgium to treat thyroid cancer, and both Iridium-192 to treat cervical and prostate cancer, and Lutetium-177, to treat neuroendocrine tumours, from the Netherlands.

“The problem is, our supply chains are built around lorries from the Channel,” Dickson says. “It would take a substantial, expensive and time-consuming process to reorganise all those supply chains, but we can’t consider the process until we have a clear picture on the post-Brexit deal.”
Brexit's latest no-deal crisis? Decaying radioactive medicine


Iodine 123 - Half life 13.2 hours
Lutetium-177 - half Life 6.7 days
Radium 223 - half life 11.4 days
Iridium-192 - half life 74 days
So one crash on a motorway today what happens?
 
Which drugs have this short shelf life that you are referring to?

Insulin will last for 28 days at room temperature (or from when opened).

Refrigerated it will last until its expiry date. How long is that you might wonder? Well at the weekend I picked up my latest prescription and I just had a look.

Humulin - October....... Oh that's not good. No wait. October 2021

And my other insulin I take, Humalog - July 2021

If we end up with lorries carrying insulin that are delayed for two years then we might have problems. :p
I used to work for Eli Lilly, primarily CNS related and Health Economics later on...Anyway, Lilly distributed Humulin before the EU was established...And if I recall correctly we did to 152 countries around the world.

So besides your excellent points, people seem to forget we managed to do this before.
 
Drugs are not the only thing needed in the NHS.
This essential item has an extremely short shelf life and cannot be stockpiled.

Unlike many medicines, radioactive isotopes cannot be stockpiled. As soon as they are produced they begin to decay. The longer the delay, the smaller the dose of useful isotope that remains.

Technetium-99m (99mTc). This extremely useful element has a half-life of just six hours, and so is transported to hospitals and radiopharmacies in the form of ‘technetium-99m generators’. These devices contain the decaying parent element, molybdenum-99 (99Mo) which has a half-life of sixty-six hours.

Approximately one million UK patients each year rely on radioisotope procedures. The UK is not self-sufficient in these materials, importing around 80% of the medical radioisotopes we use. Most of these come from the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Dr Dickson noted that if imported radioisotopes suffered delays then “the guarantee of supply will not be there and what comes out at the other end will not be, essentially, what we paid for. f you delay that at customs or through border issues, you have paid for 100 but you get 50 doses. You therefore cannot treat patients adequately…and you are incurring a massive cost for the NHS”.

Dr Dickson also cast doubt on the government’s plan to transport radioisotopes into the country by air, pointing to the lack of specialist handlers and airport capacity.
Medical Radioisotopes and No-Deal Brexit

Since the UK has no reactors capable of producing Mo-99, British hospitals have so far relied on weekly supplies by lorry from reactors in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Five nuclear reactors in Europe provide around 60% of the world’s production of Mo-99, which is used to produce Technetium 99, the most widely used diagnostic isotope.
BMA Euratom and ensuring the continued uninterrupted cross-border supply of nuclear materials, including for medical use, post-Brexit


Also falling into the short shelf life/no stockpiling category are most radioisotopes for oncology.
The UK also imports Radium-223 from Norway to treat bone tumours, Iodine-123 from Belgium to treat thyroid cancer, and both Iridium-192 to treat cervical and prostate cancer, and Lutetium-177, to treat neuroendocrine tumours, from the Netherlands.

“The problem is, our supply chains are built around lorries from the Channel,” Dickson says. “It would take a substantial, expensive and time-consuming process to reorganise all those supply chains, but we can’t consider the process until we have a clear picture on the post-Brexit deal.”
Brexit's latest no-deal crisis? Decaying radioactive medicine


Iodine 123 - Half life 13.2 hours
Lutetium-177 - half Life 6.7 days
Radium 223 - half life 11.4 days
Iridium-192 - half life 74 days
So they produce 60% for the world...yet somehow can't get it to the UK across the pond after Brexit? Seriously dude, you are falling for that kind of stuff?

Sure, there will be changes required but that can be overcome. Perhaps also a good opportunity to invest and get our own production going in parallel.
 
So one crash on a motorway today what happens?

Like saying, people die in car crashes anyway so why wear seat belts.

You're right, there will always be unpreventable issues to supply chain. Nobody is arguing this isn't so. People are simply saying, is the risk of deliberately introducing risk that *may* result in death worth the perceived and as yet intangible benefits that Brexit will deliver?
 
So they produce 60% for the world...yet somehow can't get it to the UK across the pond after Brexit? Seriously dude, you are falling for that kind of stuff?

Sure, there will be changes required but that can be overcome. Perhaps also a good opportunity to invest and get our own production going in parallel.

Who's going to invest in that? All that upstart cost to serve just the UK market because attempting to serve the EU market will place any UK based company at a severe disadvantage behind established EU producers with easier access to international markets.
 
You're right, there will always be unpreventable issues to supply chain. Nobody is arguing this isn't so. People are simply saying, is the risk of deliberately introducing risk that *may* result in death worth the perceived and as yet intangible benefits that Brexit will deliver?
And others are saying this is all just project fear as an attempt to stop Brexit.
 
And others are saying this is all just project fear as an attempt to stop Brexit.
Who are these others.? Do they work as Radiologists or other medical professionals?
Are the British Medical Association and Royal College of Radiologists saying it is Project Fear? It's No Deal Brexit that is the concern.
 
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So they produce 60% for the world...yet somehow can't get it to the UK across the pond after Brexit? Seriously dude, you are falling for that kind of stuff?
Yeah. Half life of 6 hours, what sort of rubbish is that? Everybody knows that radioactive materials will last for millions of year. And hasn't the UK got its own reactors and Sellafield.
We don't actually need to import any. It's just Project Fear.
We probably don't actually use any either. It's just Project Fear.

DeLemming is standing on the cliff edge contemplating flying out and taking in the view of the sunny uplands. If a bird can do it, so can I. Am I not more postive thinking than a bird.?
Bystander: you're going to die.

DeLemming: Mere Project Fear. I'm not falling for that. By the power of postive thinking I can do anything.
Bystander: But you will be falling. To your death.

DeLemming: Mere project Fear. Join me, the view of the sunny uplands will be wonderful.
Bystander: Right. Just give me a few seconds to get my phone ready so I can stick the video on Youtube.

DeLemming: Repeats his mantra By the power of positive thinking I can do anything. Steps off the cliif and on the way down to getting his skull smashed out on the rocks below just has time to go Oh Shi........

Bystander: One born every minute. Sells the video to TV for a tidy sum. Shortly afterwards opens up a DeLemming Power of Postive Thinking flying school on the clifftop and quickly is able to retire on the proceeds from the One Born Every Minute TV franchise rights.

I'm a sucker for falling from stuff from the BMA, the Royal College of Radiologists and the Lancet. Because, like, you know, they is experts. But I'm not standing on the edge of a cliff...
Sure, there will be changes required but that can be overcome. Perhaps also a good opportunity to invest and get our own production going in parallel.
Overcome how exactly? By the power of positive thinking?

Did you stop to think why we don't already produce it ourselves? and why the reactors in Europe produce 60% of the world supply?
Why the USA, which consumes about half of the world’s supply of Mo-99, has had no domestic (i.e., U.S.-based) production of this isotope since the late 1980s? but instead imports from Europe, Australia and South Africa? Or why Canada, a previous exporter to the USA with 20% of the worlds production shut down it's facilities in 2018?.

Who do you think is going to invest in a research reactor to produce these isotopes for the UK? How much is that going to cost?

There are new methods to make the stuff being developed but they are not quick and easy off the shelf solutions. which will be available in the weeks before a possible No Deal brexit or the months afterwards either. This is the state of one of the new production facilities in May 2019.

SHINE-Groundbreaking-Speakers-WEB.jpg

A breaking the ground ceremony. Their plant won't be producing before mid 2021 at the earliest and even then will not produce enough to fully meet USA requirements. None for the UK there then...
 
Yeah. Half life of 6 hours, what sort of rubbish is that? Everybody knows that radioactive materials will last for millions of year. And hasn't the UK got its own reactors and Sellafield.
We don't actually need to import any. It's just Project Fear.
We probably don't actually use any either. It's just Project Fear.

DeLemming is standing on the cliff edge contemplating flying out and taking in the view of the sunny uplands. If a bird can do it, so can I. Am I not more postive thinking than a bird.?
Bystander: you're going to die.

DeLemming: Mere Project Fear. I'm not falling for that. By the power of postive thinking I can do anything.
Bystander: But you will be falling. To your death.

DeLemming: Mere project Fear. Join me, the view of the sunny uplands will be wonderful.
Bystander: Right. Just give me a few seconds to get my phone ready so I can stick the video on Youtube.

DeLemming: Repeats his mantra By the power of positive thinking I can do anything. Steps off the cliif and on the way down to getting his skull smashed out on the rocks below just has time to go Oh Shi........

Bystander: One born every minute. Sells the video to TV for a tidy sum. Shortly afterwards opens up a DeLemming Power of Postive Thinking flying school on the clifftop and quickly is able to retire on the proceeds from the One Born Every Minute TV franchise rights.

I'm a sucker for falling from stuff from the BMA, the Royal College of Radiologists and the Lancet. Because, like, you know, they is experts. But I'm not standing on the edge of a cliff...

Overcome how exactly? By the power of positive thinking?

Did you stop to think why we don't already produce it ourselves? and why the reactors in Europe produce 60% of the world supply?
Why the USA, which consumes about half of the world’s supply of Mo-99, has had no domestic (i.e., U.S.-based) production of this isotope since the late 1980s? but instead imports from Europe, Australia and South Africa? Or why Canada, a previous exporter to the USA with 20% of the worlds production shut down it's facilities in 2018?.

Who do you think is going to invest in a research reactor to produce these isotopes for the UK? How much is that going to cost?

There are new methods to make the stuff being developed but they are not quick and easy off the shelf solutions. which will be available in the weeks before a possible No Deal brexit or the months afterwards either. This is the state of one of the new production facilities in May 2019.

View attachment 1200053

A breaking the ground ceremony. Their plant won't be producing before mid 2021 at the earliest and even then will not produce enough to fully meet USA requirements. None for the UK there then...
ROFLMAO Why are you so worked up? They produce for 60% of the world, yet following Brexit you seem to think that they can't deliver to the UK, their neighbouring country, anymore. Let's have a reality check here...
 
DeLemming is standing on the cliff edge contemplating flying out and taking in the view of the sunny uplands. If a bird can do it, so can I. Am I not more postive thinking than a bird.?
Bystander: you're going to die.

DeLemming: Mere Project Fear. I'm not falling for that. By the power of postive thinking I can do anything.
Bystander: But you will be falling. To your death.

DeLemming: Mere project Fear. Join me, the view of the sunny uplands will be wonderful.
Bystander: Right. Just give me a few seconds to get my phone ready so I can stick the video on Youtube.

DeLemming: Repeats his mantra By the power of positive thinking I can do anything. Steps off the cliif and on the way down to getting his skull smashed out on the rocks below just has time to go Oh Shi........
Needs to read this book: 'Falling from a Cliff Edge' by Ilene Dover.
 
Well done, you've found something which does have a short shelf life.
Wasn't hard to find.
Any reason we can't just fly it in?
Try reading the comments by Dr Jeanette Dickson, Vice-President of the Faculty of Clinical Oncology at the Royal College of Radiologists to House of Commons Health Committee on this
We are talking about things that have relatively little usage and in small quantities too.
Depends if you call NHS England data has shown that approximately half a million scans which play a vital role in diagnosing and treating cancer in the UK are performed annually using imported radioisotopes little usage.
Meanwhile, do you accept that diabetics have nothing to worry about, contrary to the scare stories that keep being pushed?
Depends if they need a scan using Technetium-99m and the hospital's supply is affected by a No Deal brexit. The main cause of death of diabetics is heart disease and/or stroke. And that is what Technetium-99m, amongst other things, is used to scan for (heart disease/stroke that is, not death as that is a lot easier and cheaper to detect).

Myocardial Perfusion is a nuclear medicine examination of the heart – the myocardium. This technique can be used to evaluate coronary artery disease (CAD) and cardiac stress. Technetium-99m tetrofosmin (Myoview™) is a radiopharmaceutical with many applications in nuclear medicine to generate cardiac images.

Diagnostic imaging kits containing technetium-99m labelled exametazime (Ceretec™) are used to evaluate blood flow within the brain especially after a stroke, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease and migraine.
Technetium Myocardial Perfusion Imaging | Open Medscience
 
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