PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2017-11-27 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Did Shane Patrick Boyle Die After Fundraising to Pay for Insulin? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • In February 2017, Shane Patrick Boyle started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a month of insulin. A few weeks later, he died after developing diabetic ketoacidosis. Although several local outlets reported on Boyle's death at the time, it wasn't until November 2017 that Boyle's story reached many readers, thanks in part to a Facebook post from United States Sen. Bernie Sanders linking to an article in The Nation about the rising cost of insulin: In addition to highlighting the sad circumstances surrounding Boyle's death, The Nation also pointed to Alec Raeshawn Smith, a 26-year-old who died in June after he lost his insurance and started to ration his insulin: The deaths of Smith and Boyle and their reported struggles with health insurance were met with skepticism by some readers. Others encountered this news on social media, where it was shared with incomplete or incorrect information. For instance, comedian David Anthony conflated the deaths of these two individuals when he wrote that a 26-year-old had started a GoFundMe to get insulin: Alec Raeshawn Smith was 26 years old at the time of his death; however, we have not been able to find anything to indicate that he had set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for insulin. (A fundraiser was set up after his death to cover funeral costs.) Shane Patrick Boyle, on the other hand, was older when he died, and he did set up a fundraiser for medication. Smith passed away on 27 June 2017. In his obituary, his family asked for donations to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and encouraged everyone to sign a petition for affordable health care: Boyle died of the same treatable complication that killed Smith: diabetic ketoacidosis. Before his death on 18 March 2017, he set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for one month of insulin: The only archived version of this campaign is from 23 March 2017, five days after Boyle's death. Although this copy shows that Boyle had raised $1,590 of a $750 goal, it appears that the majority of this money was raised after his passing. (All eight comments were posted in the days following Boyle's death and the visible donations, more than $200, were posted within a day of its archival date.) Ted Closson, a comic book artist and friend of Boyle's, wrote that Boyle was $50 shy of his goal for over two weeks: A second GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a memorial for Boyle and his mother also suggests that the fundraiser was short of the $750 goal at the time of Boyle's passing (emphasis ours): Vice also mentioned the circumstances surrounding Boyle's death in a story about the rising price of insulin. Long before Boyle launched a fundraising campaign, he worried about a Trump presidency's effects on the price of insulin. Immediately after the election, on 9 November 2016, Boyle wrote on Facebook (emphasis ours): (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url