"Artificial Pancreas" For Some Diabetics

August 2008

In Summer 2008, CBS News did a story on Julie Anne Ressler. She is a mom, a doctor, and a Type 1 diabetic. For the majority of her life, she has had to prick her finger more than 10 times a day in order to monitor her blood glucose levels and to determine how much insulin she should take. She says that she is constantly reminded throughout the day that she has diabetes because she has to check her numbers so much. Recently, in Los Angeles, she was put on a test trial with the artificial pancreas. The doctor who used her for the test trial said she loved it because she wasn't worried about her diabetes all day; the artificial pancreas took care of everything. Without any direction from herself, the machine was able to successfully detect blood glucose levels and then give the appropriate amount of insulin. Again, as mentioned in previous posts, everyone is anticipating the approval of the artificial pancreas by the FDA.

In order for biotechnology to be practiced effectively, the human costs and affects need to be weighed just as much as the actual medicine and science. This CBS show elucidates this point; it hones in on the human perspective of the artificial pancreas. Julie Anne Ressler explained how life was exceptionally better with the artificial pancreas and that she was lucky to have gotten the chance to try it for at least a few days.

With this in mind, I was upset that with positive patient feedback, the FDA still had not given the artificial pancreas approval. I decided to look at the FDA website for more information regarding the much anticipated artificial pancreas approval. In order to expedite the approval, the FDA has created the Interagency Artificial Pancreas Working Group (IAPWG). This group works with private organizations, patient groups, academic researchers, product developers, industry and other government groups in order to figure out ways to speed up research and development. Most of the problems that are interfering with approval involve technological difficulties ( ie imperfect algorithims and mismatches between blood and interstitial glucose levels)

Here is the CBS showing about Julie Anne Ressler and the artificial pancreas.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=4327391n

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/06/earlyshow/main4324074.shtml

http://www.fda.gov/ScienceResearch/SpecialTopics/CriticalPathInitiative/ArticlesandPresentations/ucm077537.htm