MAD is a 100% volunteer community based resource hub for diabetics of all types. We provide peer-support, redistribute funds, and coordinate supply sharing. MAD does not utilize means testing: anyone who requests help with diabetes related costs is eligible to receive it. We seek to create a platform for those in our community who have been systemically erased from the conversation around insulin and medication access, especially members of the diabetes community who are (but not limited to) Black, Indigenous, Latinx, trans, type 2, LADA, MODY, type 3C, CFRD, fat, incarcerated, immigrants, un/under-documented, and who have co-occurring disabilities.
Request Aid
After filling out our intake form below, a volunteer from our Intake Team will reach out to you via text or email within 24-48 hours of the request to assist you.
If you are in emergency need (24 hours or less), we cannot guarantee that we will be able to help you in a timely manner. Please seek immediate medical help at a local ER or by calling 911.
Donate Funds
Make a gift to our general fund, or give directly to community members in need, to help eliminate insulin, medication, and supply insecurity.
Donate Supplies
Let us know what you have to share.
Volunteer
We are 100% volunteer run, and rely on gifts of time and talent to help our fellow community members get what they need.
Who is Mutual Aid Diabetes, and what do we do?
Many of us have relied on mutual aid due to rationing insulin and supplies, and many of us have provided direct aid.
Mutual Aid Diabetes (MAD) was formed in response to the insulin crisis in the United States. We are a group of diabetics who saw a need, especially during the pandemic of COVID-19, to more formally organize mutual aid efforts in the diabetes community.
- Jen C., Community Member
NEWSWORTHY
MAD in the media
Learn more about our organizers and how we work:
Bloomberg: Insulin Price Cuts Could End Up Making Money for US Drugmakers
"'Most people need at least two vials, two to four, sometimes six-plus vials every month,' said Zoe Witt, an organizer at Mutual Aid Diabetes. 'If you’re someone who actually needs to pick up their month’s worth of insulin at that price, it’s a lot.'"
Health: Eli Lilly Cuts Costs, but More Needs to Be Done for Access
"Until insulin is more accessible for all, certain patient advocacy groups are also working to fill the gaps to get insulin users the medications they need. Mutual Aid Diabetes in particular is focused on helping people get insulin—as well as other diabetes medications and supplies—and funding it as well. 'We’re the only national organization that actually distributes money directly to diabetics,' Witt said."
Prism Reports: $35 insulin caps for Medicare patients is not enough: advocates want price caps across the board
Witt now organizes with Mutual Aid Diabetes, a mutual aid group that helps people access insulin, including distributing funds and helping people access coupons for insulin. 'When you’re rationing, you’re literally in a crisis,' said Witt. 'Even if you normally can understand something as convoluted as a patient assistance program, there’s no way you’re going to be able to do that when you’re rationing insulin, because you are in a crisis. So you need someone to help you do that.'"
Teen Vogue: Insulin Legislation Is Leaving Out Many Diabetics
"[Lauren Figg, MSW] helps connect diabetic community members with long-term solutions to obtaining insulin, insulin-resistance medication, and supplies. Figg tells Teen Vogue that the legislation proposed so far, like copay caps, leave out 'the most vulnerable diabetics — the uninsured, who are most at risk for hospitalization for rationing and complications.'"
Wall Street Journal
How a Diabetes Drug Became the Talk of Hollywood, Tech and the Hamptons: Ozempic and other injections meant to treat chronic medical conditions are in high demand among elites looking to lose a little weight. ‘This is the Hollywood drug.’
CBS LA
Diabetes drug, Ozempic, causes controversy as people clamber to use it for weight loss side effect.
Glamour
Op-Ed: This Diabetes Drug Is Being Prescribed Off-Label for Weight Loss. Now There’s a Shortage. Could Hollywood's latest obsession with thinness be to blame?
Human Rights Watch
Read the 92-page report: “If I’m Out of Insulin, I’m Going to Die” which details why US insulin prices abuse human rights and features MAD organizers Allie, Emily, and Zoe.
Jezebel
Abortion Bans Will Kill Diabetic People. Already hit with crushing insulin prices and health issues, diabetics say the end of Roe v. Wade scares the hell out of them—for good reason.
Diabetics Doing Things Podcast
"MAD cannot be bought by anyone. All of our money is no strings attached money. We're not partnering with any corporations. That means that we don't need to answer to anyone. The community can just decide what's best for itself."
SELF Magazine
As insulin costs keep rising, research suggests that about 25% of diabetics have had to resort to rationing their insulin, despite the very real health risks associated with doing so.
Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting
“These systems are set up to continue gouging people for their money and also to create this continual need,” Miller said. “So, we are already seeing a bunch of people re-submitting requests for us. But we do our best to try and give them creative options so that maybe we don’t need to.”
Sick Note
Diabetics turn to one another for help: A conversation with Allie Marotta of Mutual Aid Diabetes.
The Shot
"Designer and developer Kathryn Yu made a game based on the real life story of Mutual Aid Diabetes and NY #Insulin4All activist Allie Marotta and her experience having to ration insulin."