Diabetes News
Children’s Congress 2005 Brings 150 Children with Type 1 Diabetes – Representing all 50 States and the District of Columbia – To Washington DC to Meet With Members of Congress
WASHINGTON, DC, June 21, 2005 — The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the world’s leading charitable supporter of research into type 1 diabetes and its complications, took to Capitol Hill today to testify before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs about the urgent need for a cure for type 1 diabetes and to request federal funding for diabetes research and an expansion of the federal funding policy governing embryonic stem cell research. JDRF International Chairman Mary Tyler Moore led the testifiers, who include Olympic Gold Medalist Gary Hall Jr., Hollywood producer Douglas Wick, NIDDK Director Dr. Allen Spiegel and a select group of Children’s Congress 2005 delegates. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, led by Susan M. Collins (R-ME), was a part of JDRF’s Children’s Congress 2005, which is the largest grassroots event held in support of finding a cure for type 1 diabetes.
According to Mary Tyler Moore, JDRF International Chairman, “Diabetes doesn’t have complications or side effects; diabetes is heart, kidney, vascular and eye disease. Although those of us who live with this disease are grateful to have insulin, which keeps us alive, we must remind our leaders that insulin is not a cure. In fact, it’s not even the first step on the path to a cure and it won’t spare us from these devastating complications. In order to find the cure that we so desperately need, it is critical that the federal government increase funding for type 1 diabetes research.”
“Today’s testimony is especially important because these Senators will be called on in the very near future to vote on a critical piece of legislation that will expand the current restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.” continued Ms. Moore. “It’s important that they understand the importance of stem cell research in understanding diseases like diabetes, and as possible future therapies to reverse this and other diseases.”
Children’s Congress 2005 brings 150 children with type 1 diabetes – representing all 50 States and the District of Columbia – to Capitol Hill to seek additional funds from Congress for research and an expansion of the current federal policy limiting federal funding for stem cell research. Following today’s Senate testimony all 150 Children’s Congress delegates visited with their respective House and Senate members of Congress. Their collective goal: to raise awareness about type 1 (juvenile) diabetes, and petition for increased Congressional support of diabetes research and expansion of the Administration’s policy limiting federal funding for stem cell research.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that is chronic, debilitating, and affects every organ system. In type 1 diabetes, a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone that enables people to get energy from food. Type 1 diabetes usually strikes in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood, but lasts a lifetime. People with type 1 diabetes must take multiple injections of insulin daily or continuous infusion of insulin through a pump just to survive. Taking insulin does not cure any type of diabetes nor does it prevent the possibility of its eventual and devastating effects: kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, amputation, heart attack, and stroke. More than 1.3 million Americans have type 1 diabetes.
Embryonic stem cells are special cells that can develop into every type of cell in the human body. The stem cells are created from frozen embryos in fertility clinics, donated by couples that no longer want or need the embryo because they have finished with their fertility treatments. If not donated for research, the frozen embryos would otherwise be discarded. In August of 2001, the Bush Administration announced that federal funding would be available for limited embryonic stem cell research, on just a few stem cell lines that were developed before that date. Many scientists are concerned about the quality, longevity, and availability of these lines, and researchers are now saying that this policy is hampering the advancement of science, slowing the search for cures to a wide range of diseases, and that President Bush should expand it to allow access to additional stem cell lines. After listening to the concerns of the scientific community, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the Castle-DeGette Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act on May 24, 2005 by a vote of 238-194, despite the President’s threat to veto. No date has yet been set for a vote on the Senate Stem Cell Research Act of 2005 (S.471).
With stem cell research partnerships in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Israel, Denmark, Finland and Singapore, as well as the United States, JDRF is a global leader in direct support of human stem cell research. JDRF’s also supports the International Society for Stem Cell Research as a critical means for the world’s top stem cell scientists to communicate and build collaborations focused on developing stem cell therapies.
JDRF was founded in 1970 by the parents of children with juvenile diabetes — a disease that strikes children suddenly, makes them insulin dependent for life, and carries the constant threat of devastating complications. Since inception, JDRF has provided more than $800 million to diabetes research worldwide. More than 80 percent of JDRF’s expenditures directly support research and education about research. JDRF’s mission is constant: to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research.