MOSCOW, 2 Nov. U.S. President Joe Biden claimed to have spoken to one of the discoverers of the hormone insulin, even though both of the scientists who did so, Dr. Frederick Banting and Professor John James Richard MacLeod, died before he was born.
p>"Do you know how much it costs to produce insulin for diabetics? It was discovered by a man who specifically filed a patent for it so that the medicine would be available to everyone. I spoke to him…" — assured the head of the White House, speaking at a special event in Florida.
Banting and MacLeod received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of insulin. They died in 1941 and 1935 respectively. At the same time, Biden was born in 1942.
The American president spoke at an event dedicated to public health in the United States and designed to rally Democratic voters in Florida seven days before the midterm elections.
At the same event, Biden erroneously stated that his late son Beau died while serving in Iraq.
Bo Biden served in Iraq in 2008-2009, but died of cancer in 2015.