Should people have a choice insulin from animals or genetically modified insulin?

Diabetes is becoming more common in the United States approximatly 1.5 million have type 1 diabetes in the US and most of them are children. The core issue is an inability to control the level of glucose in blood. The only treatment is insulin. (actionbioscience.org)

Previously the only source of insulin was animals slaughtered for meat and other purposes. With this as the only source it was never enough to provide a sufficient amount of insulin. In 1982 the drug and food administration approved insulin produced genetically. (sciencejrank.org)

Human insulin is the only animal protein to have been made in bacteria that its structure is absolutly identical to the natural molecule. After viewing how this is done with my knowledge from this unit I was absolulty amazed to be able to relate what I had just learned to a real life scenerio. I picked this subject because my grandma is diabetic and I give her a shot every night never really knowing where the insulin came from. After reading this I am amazed at what scientist can do to help with people who have diabetes.
One issue was that contamination of the final product by the host cells icreased the risk of contamination in the fermentation broth. This was eliminated by the purification process. When the process of tests was done no impurities were detected. This procedure is now performed using yeast cells. This minimises the cost and need for complex purification processes. (littletree.com)

Another issue was there was an increase of hypoglycemia in patients when they switched from animal derived insulin to recombinant DNA human insulin. In a study held in Britian hypoglycemia was induced in patients using either pork or human insulin. The researchers found no significant difference in signs of hypogylcemia between the users of both insulins. After 10 years 1/3 of people with diabetes dependent on insulin lose their hypoglycemic warning signals. (littletree.com)

Another issue I ran across is why don't people have a choice between animal and human insulin if the cost is low in producing it. None of the almighty insulin manufacturers would second guess their decision to pull natural insulin from the shelves. Genetically modified insulin is cheaper to produce. This is better for business because it assigns profitable patents to insulin and assists in makeing diabetics buy it. (naturalnews.com)

After reading about the pros and cons of genetically modified insulin I think scientists are doing a great job trying to ensure that we have insulin for the people who need it. Unfortunatly diabetes doesn't look like its going anywhere anytime soon. I find it amazing how these scientists can use genes in the medical field and hope that they find more cures for diseases through this. I do agree if someone is absolutly against genetically modified insulin or any other drug they should have a choice and I'm sure if they did some reasearch for themselves they might take another look at it. I am very excited about this matter because now I know where the insulin comes from and how we get it I can't wait to tell my grandma who depends on insulin just like millions of others everyday.