Why were meters for A1C home testing withdrawn?!

Why were meters for A1C home testing withdrawn?

There _were_ 3 meters available for home use, Metrika A1C Now (no longer available for home use), ChoiceDM A1C Home(discontinued product), and a very expensive meter in the UK which cannot be shipped to the U.S.
Now NONE of these home test meters for A1C are available to us. WHY??? All were certified by the FDA for home use, all were accurate.
Were these meters taking too much money from the labs?
The labs around here (S. Ohio) charge around $150.00 for A1C testing plus the $75.00 charge for drawing blood and a meter cost about $30.00.

Where is our government looking out for us NOW????
Why were these cost effective meters taken away?

2 weeks ago
Additional:
one poster stated that Roche Labs' Accucheck Complete meter does A1C.
This is incorrect, that meter only stores test results that you PUT INTO IT MANUALLY, it does not do A1C testing.
Also, it is grossly overpriced, ranging from about $600.00 to over $1000.00.
It does have quite a large diary memory, but for testing it does ONLY BG LEVELS.

2 weeks ago
Paula h....You have it. Doctors, labs, and pharm companies want to TREAT diabetes, not to cure it.
That goes for MOST of the current crop of 'deadly' and chronic diseases.
But that's just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

I love conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but unfortunately, the main reason the A1c meters are no longer sold for home use is that sales were very poor. When my pharmacist first took away his display of the A1c Now, I asked him why, and he said that the only customers he had for it were me and 2 or 3 other people. He still ordered the meters for me when I asked, but now of course even that is impossible. Metrika couldn't make any money in the home market.

The sad truth is that too many people do not take good care of their diabetes. Even getting people to test for blood glucose is hard. My endocrinologist told me that on average, his diabetic patients don't even do two BG tests a day. Many just test a couple of times a week. (He can tell that by how often they get their prescriptions renewed for test strips. )

It's a real struggle, but it is understandable when you realize that many people feel fine for years despite being diabetic. They just don't think they need to be careful. Other patients KNOW they should test, but they cheat so much on their diets that they skip the BG test to avoid being confronted with the truth. And many other diabetics are older and a little confused, or just scared of the pin prick. There is also the matter of who pays. The home test is out of pocket, while insurance or Medicare will often pay for an A1c performed by a doctor.

So, patients don't do a good job of monitoring themselves, and they figure their doctor will take care of the tests. Sure enough, when they go to the doctor, he does an A1c, and then they don't need to have another one for a couple of months anyway, so why even think about it?

All of this makes for a vicious cycle for the sellers of the home tests. The people who need to use their product refuse to do it. It is too bad, especially for people like you and me who work to keep good control. Sigh.

Good luck!!