Don't veto diabetes!   (November 9, 2007)

The American Diabetes Association has just sent out an e-mail, in which they say that the U.S. House of Representatives has recently passed a spending bill that provides the first funding increase in two years for diabetes prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Senate also passed this bill, and now it is on its way to the President.

This should be great news.

However the President has stated that he plans to veto this bill.

This bill provides a 5% increase for the Division of Diabetes Translation in the CDC, and a 2.7% increase for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. According to current CDC estimates, diabetes prevalence is increasing at an alarming rate each year. If left unchecked, the United States could be looking at more than 50 million people with diabetes by the year 2050. The funding in this bill would go a long way to combating this public health crisis. Please ask the President not to veto the first increase for diabetes prevention and research efforts in the past two years.

If you want to send a message, the ADA suggests wording like the following:

The funding included in the FY2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill is vital for diabetes prevention and research, and can have a significant impact in communities across the country. Given that one out of every ten health care dollars is spent on diabetes and its complications, we should be investing in diabetes treatment and prevention and in research for a cure, not pulling back on our commitment to the millions of people who suffer the potentially devastating consequences of this disease.

Please do not veto the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill!

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