Diabetes and Politics

Over the past few weeks thousands of people like me, and you contacted the White House and Congress urging the passage of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill.

Last night the House voted to override the President’s veto. While votes were picked up, the votes need to override the veto fell short. A sad day for much needed diabetes research. But this is the politics of this administration concerning the health of Americans.

Click the link below to find out how your U.S. Representative voted and to send them letter about the vote: http://main.diabetes.org/site/VoteCenter?voteId=7641

I'm glad to report that my representative Pete Visclosky, Democrate, Indiana did vote to override the President's veto, and I did send him a thank you for his efforts.

This bill contained what would have been 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 President vetoed the bill because it was about $10 billion over the budget he submitted earlier in the year. It should be noted that this budget would have continued to under-fund diabetes research and prevention.

Maintaining inadequate funding levels while diabetes grows at an alarming rate is unacceptable.

The National Association for Diabetes is planning to go back to Congress and try to convince them to stand strong and continue pushing for the higher funding for diabetes research and prevention.

I will post updates as they become available.