Dear Dave, here are some statements and informations for you:

1. Adverse Drug Events ADA Acute death (dead-in-bed-syndrome) is not rare in younger diabetics, already before age 20! Thordarsonn (ref. Diab. Med) (1) from Norway states that we have to live with the fact that about 6%(in the age group < 40) of all death will have to be accepted as a cause of insulin hypoglycemia. Thordarson works and lives in a country where 100% of insulin is human. In the whole of Scandinvavia national health services are responsible for this deal (price reduction?) taking place in 1988 in a very short time.

2. I found out some time ago that (at least one major HM insulin producer) genetically DNA transferred E coli are cultured on the best substrate for them: beef broth in gelatine - ideal for prions.

Best regards

Arthur Teuscher

---- Response ----

From: Dave Groves [dggroves@earthlink.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 1999 11:09 AM
To: diabetic@Lehigh. EDU; arthur.teuscher@diab.ch
Subject: RE: beef insulin and prions BSE

This is fascinating, Dr. Teuscher. Since Eli Lilly holds the patents on the E. Coli rDNA process it really seems to make them absolute hypocrites for their raising the nonsensical BSE risk charges against beef insulin with the FDA. For the FDA to use the BSE arguments in their letter to me shows just how far off the mark they are on this issue. (I am going to publish their letter to me as soon as I can.)

On the "dead in bed" matter, I am staggered. I knew it was becoming a recognized problem but had no idea that it was up to such intolerable levels.

The DCCT group has admitted that 4-13% of diabetic deaths are now due to "iatrogenic hypoglycemia accidents" but are blaming "tight control." It seems totally ironic that "human" now appears to be a proximate cause for all of the "other causes" of hypoglycemia unawareness.

1. As Jenny Hirst has suggested, the 4 hour shift in "peak" activity for N (isophane) and L (Lente) that the ADA had denied for 15+ years, would certainly cause the unexpected hypos that have been linked to unawareness in many studies.
2. Lilly expressly warns that "intensive therapy" (as opposed to low A1c) which they define as taking 3 or more injections per day, causes less pronounced warning symptoms. The ADA table shows that even human UL will not reliably cover a diabetic for a full 24 hour period meaning that the only way a diabetic can expect to achieve any level of reasonable control is through using 3 or more injections if human insulin is used.
3. Even folks, like Dr. Bernstein, who suggest that the total amount of and/or speed of decrease in BG is a primary symptom generator may eventually realize that the inherent instability noted in human by many who have compared human to "animal," need to recognize that there isn't just a single cause of the unawareness problem. It certainly is NOT duration of diabetes or neuropathy all by itself, and it would appear that human insulin, by its molecular structure requires the user to expose himself to a number of the "other" risk factors.
4. The "change" from animal to human is clearly fraught with danger, but I can see no reason or mechanism by which human would be any more dangerous for those started on animal than for those started on human. The "new" symptom list is a joke. Most of the "new" early warning symptoms were defined as late stage signs of hypoglycemia for years. Tragically, they do the diabetic no good at all and may actually serve to prevent his taking appropriate corrective actions at the first stages of hypoglycemia.

I have placed a link to your site at http://www.diab.ch/~teuscher/index.htm on the links page of my site at http://members.tripod.com/diabetics_world and will be adding it to my  site shortly.

Clicking on the link below will take you to "My Story" on Diabetics_World. I am trying to get the copy on all 20 of the articles I cite in that research piece so that I can set them out as I have the Heine article and one of the two Lesser articles. It seems to me that having "read cite" buttons as I have done on those two cites is a truly effective way to teach the lessons we, apparently, must teach.

If you could transmit me, either hardcopy or electronically, a copy of your work, "HYPOGLYCEMIA UNAWARENESS IN DIABETICS TRANSFERRED FROM BEEF/PORCINE INSULIN TO HUMAN INSULIN" A. Teuscher and W. G. Berger, LANCET, p. 382-85, August 15,1987, I would greatly appreciate being able to include it. In composing my site, I've not had much time for reviewing other sites that deal with this important issue. If this and/or any of your other articles are already available on your site, the easiest method might be just to link my pages to your articles on your site (though that would keep me from bookmarking to the precise location from which my cites derive). If you can help me get in touch with any of the other authors I cite, I will be forever in your debt (not that I am not already.)

Dave Groves
dggroves@earthlink.net
http://members.tripod.com/diabetics_world

(In discussions with the author of the cited article, it was clarified that the abstract reciting 2-6 "dead in bed syndrome deaths" per 100,000 years was, apparently a clerical error.  The actual is 2-6 in 10,000 diabetic years.)