I carefully steer clear of political issues in this site. There is a difference, however, between politics and diabetes advocacy. I just received an email from the ADA that makes me angry – not about the ADA. It is about a statement made by Mike Mulvaney, the White House Office of Management and Budget Director, which you can read about here:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mulvaney-agrees-with-jimmy-kimmel-test/article/2622843
“The question is, who is responsible for your ordinary healthcare? You or somebody else? That doesn’t mean we should take care of the person who sits at home, eats poorly and gets diabetes. Is that the same thing as Jimmy Kimmel’s kid? I don’t think that it is.”
This is what the ADA has to stay about this:
I think this statement by Mike Mulvaney is deeply wrong, for several reasons:
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many people with diabetes don’t get diabetes because they “sit at home and eat poorly.” There are whole classes of diabetes for whom this is strictly a genetic disease.
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even for strict Type 2 diabetes, there is plenty of evidence today, mounting every year, that genetic predisposition is essential to trigger Type 2 diabetes.
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it perpetuates an ugly stereotype that affects all of us.
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it implies that if you don’t live right by someone’s lights you deserve to die on your own penny.
I think that it is important for us to react strongly against this type of statement and line up with the ADA. I hope that all of you, without regards to politics, will feel the same. Diabetes is not a choice.