Regarding “USF site boosts diabetes research” (front page, Nov. 15): I have witnessed diabetes for over 53 years. I watched as my grandfather sat at his kitchen table and gave himself daily insulin injections. I now watch my daughter, who developed Type 1 juvenile diabetes four years ago, give herself the same treatment.
She, like the young lady quoted in your article, Emma Donahue, would like to lead a life “something close to normal.”
The article states that when Donahue saw USF’s new Diabetes Research Center she felt a surge of hope. That once-empty room that she walked through last year is “now filled with many resources and cool things.” My daughter and family would describe what we see quite differently.
I would like to hear from someone who will tell me that after all of the “cool things and resources” shown that he or she leaves with anything other than the following: “You have diabetes and you must monitor your blood sugar level and take insulin. We haven’t developed anything better that the same treatment option that your great grandfather had.”
There are no “cool things.” There is only newer, well-written and illustrated literature stating the same information that’s been available since the early 20th century. The “new” resources for life improvement are, at best, dismal, and, in reality, don’t exist. The “pump” is not an advancement, and any argument otherwise is simply an overstatement and smokescreen.
The reality is that organizations such as The USF Diabetes Center have aided in developing a network of public relations entities, working with researchers, research centers and pharmaceutical companies supplying diabetes medication to gain government grant money while achieving no benefit to those suffering from the disease at present.
Can the institute or center director Jeffrey Krischer, who is described as continuing to work on understanding effective treatment, explain why, while given no change in treatment over 50 years, the monthly cost for diabetes maintenance is so much higher, even with medical coverage costing about $900 a month and low co-pays? Since the same decades-old treatment now comes at a much higher cost, I conclude that the actual level of care is worse.
What is being done by those in the medical and research profession to correct this? The answer appears to be nothing, and yet they are given huge sums of money.
While I hope that someday there is a cure and/or advancements made in the treatment of diabetes, I believe that I speak for the millions of sufferers who are paying for the research facility in saying that it should either give us back the money or be made to show measureable advances in improving the treatment for those suffering at present as a prerequisite to receiving funding.
John McCary
Temple Terrace
