I got a link to an article from ABC News today about Halle Berry. I was encouraged to see that doctors are equally concerned with her claims that she's cured herself of type 1 diabetes.

"Diabetics quickly took to the blogosphere to condemn Berry for claiming that a change in diet could cure Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease in which the pancreas permanently fails to produce insulin, the vital hormone that regulates sugar levels in the blood."

In the article, Dr. Francine Kaufman was quoted as saying "...type 1...means their immune system has destroyed the insulin producing part of pancreas. In that case, there is no way to wean yourself off insulin." Dr. Kaufman is a respected endocrinologist and diabetes researcher and seeing her statement, in black and white, is fantastic. She's someone we can point to as an undisputed expert when we get the inevitable "Well, Halley Berry cured herself - why can't you do the same?" comments.

I still think that someone with such a high profile as Halle Berry, someone who speaks out about diabetes regularly, owes it to the diabetes community to get an accurate diagnosis and to talk about it. I've heard comments from a lot of people that it's Ms. Berry's diabetes and she doesn't have to give details about it. Up to a point, that's true, but when she goes on television and makes such potentially dangerous statements, then I believe she does have an obligation to set the record straight and to come clean with the public.

The impression I get, and I am just going with my feelings here, is that Ms. Berry is ashamed of having type 2 and therefore says she's a type 1 to alleviate some strange sense of blame she has. Type 2 falls into that "you deserve it" category, along with lung cancer, for many people. It's an attitude that's exacerbated by the media, unfortunately, and one attitude that I think needs to change.