Posted by Dennis on September 23, 2002 at 11:53:24:
In Reply to: ADA - : The fleecing of the sick posted by Dennis on September 11, 2002 at 11:54:34:
I just love to see the pack come out against a guy that is advocating for a cure for diabetes. Name calling and all. This is a frustrating never ending disease. I say we need a cure and you say that is sick. Shame on you then. I am not left wing, right wing, or radical anything. I have had the same job for 15 years and used to windsurf 3 days a week before I entered the hell of diabetes. Since then I have been up every noght checking blood sugars and worring about my daughter. Go ahead and fire away because you don't know what you are talking about.
I am not going to keep silent and just say its fine that the ADA doesn't really fund cure research. I am speaking out against that and not against the kids or families that go to the camps. Don't try to make me out to be your villian or against families - that is rediculous, I am for them just as much as you or anyone. The foe is the disease, and I want to see us taking steps to cure it.
The sweet kids going to camp invest a huge effort in organizing them and attending them and yes they make liflong friendships that are priceless. But in my opinion I would rather see the disease cured. I don't want to become a camp organizer, I don't want to admit deafeat to this disease and just find ways to live with it.
I guess my advocacy was misplaced here, with the risk of the people who have invested their sweat and tears to organize the event taking it personally as you did. That was not my purpose.
Don't think for a second I have anything against the sincere efforts of kids and families to have a camp and learn archery - that's great, my daughter goes to a swim school taight by a diabetic. But all the money the ADA raises, giving the families the sense of doing something to beat this disease I think - my opinion - is not what we should expect from the largest national diabetes organization in the country. It seems to me they want to treat the disease and not cure it.
Go ahead and attach any filthy name you want. The fact is I want a cure for my daughter's disease, your daughter's disease, and all patients, and nothing you can ever say will change the fact that all I want is for every kid with diabetes to someday not have to take shots and blood tests.
You can't say I'm agaisnt the mother or the child in the story, I am not at all. I was speaking out against all the treatment dollars spent at the expense of cure research. Just because you don't get instant feedback from a dollar invested in cure research does'nt mean it is wasted or any less crucial than a dollar spent on a camp.
The ADA spends only 15 cents on the dollar toward cure research, and I think that is a shame, that is what I was atacking, as it should be. You have every right to think most of the money should go to care and treatment issues, but I'm sorry, this disease has gone on toooo long and I want to see it cured. The status quo is not working.
The last issue of the ADA magazine, Diabetes Forecast has 33 article in it and only one had anything to do with cure research. 13 deal with recepies. They sell 625,000 subscriptions to that magazine.
If you still have a problem with that then it's your loss.