The issuance of blue tick marks to fake accounts on the social networking site Twitter not only cost the US pharmaceutical company billions of dollars, but also brought scrutiny to the high cost of insulin.
According to the news agency AFP, the share price of American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly fell sharply after Twitter launched an $8 subscription to get the blue tick mark and a huge increase in verified fake accounts.
Following the tweet, the company issued a statement apologizing to users, saying that the "misleading message was sent by a fake Lilly account."
But this 'erroneous' tweet from a fake account has sparked yet another debate over the extra cost of insulin
Qasim Rasheed, an American lawyer, tweeted that the company should apologize for raising the price of what is essentially life-saving insulin.
People are dying because of your greed. Apologize for it.
Peter Meberduk, associated with the social organization Public Citizen, said that the information released by the fake account, rather than the real Eli Lilly account, is probably the closest to the truth.
The cost of insulin in the United States has increased dramatically over the past decades. Compared to 32 high-income countries, the cost of insulin is 8 times higher in the US.
A survey released in October revealed that one in four respondents with diabetes had to take a break from insulin due to financial difficulties.
On the occasion of World Diabetes Day on November 14, the social organization Public Citizen also wrote a letter to the US Congress demanding a reduction in the cost of insulin.
"There has been a long-standing need for insulin to be made available to everyone, and of course it should be free," says drug price watchdog Peter Meberduk.
After the fake account spread false information, Eli Lilly tried to contact Twitter representatives to remove the account, but Twitter could not be contacted for several hours.
On Friday, Eli Lilly issued orders that no ads be placed on Twitter.
Apart from this, the companies had to suffer huge losses after the verified fake Twitter accounts of defense equipment manufacturing giant Lockheed Martin and others were created.
On Friday, Twitter temporarily suspended its $8 subscription plan to issue a blue tick mark to verified accounts.
