Funding for Research
By editor | March 9, 2008
Besides the National Institutes of Health, the major funders of diabetes research are the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Still, the funds are not enough to support the many new ideas that are submitted for funding purposes. Funds are needed for salaries, for equipment, for supplies, and for the paperwork involved in reporting and sharing the information from investigator to investigator, and from the research centers to the public. Training funds are needed to develop the researchers of tomorrow. By the time a physician or other scientist completes the necessary research preparation, most of the funds have been used up.
For the physician, an offer of a medical practice often takes the place of research work so that he or she can have enough of an income to repay school debts and support the family.
Research training programs need supplies and equipment. Sometimes this equipment needs to be constructed to meet the researchers guidelines (for example, in the case of the implantable artificial pancreas, no equipment was available to proceed with such an idea, so the machine had to be made from the ground up).
To aid research efforts, talk with your legislators and encourage an increase in funding for diabetes research. The ADA can supply you with statistics sheets of diabetes facts and comparisons of funding with other diseases (for example: Diabetes takes 15 percent of the national health dollar while AIDS takes only 3 percent, but AIDS gets 15 percent of the federal research dollars and diabetes gets only 3 percent) that you can present to your congresspersons to help them understand the need for increased funding to eradicate this disease. Support your diabetes association and their fund-raising efforts, and aid them in their efforts to alert the public to the dangers of diabetes and the need for research support.
The need for research into diabetes will be with us until the disease has finally been conquered. At present, education and knowledge are our best weapons. The more you, as an individual, keep yourself fit by following your program, the better able you will be to benefit from new research. And the more you share your ideas on the prevention, cure, or treatment of the disease with health professionals or the diabetes association, the more you will be helping to make diabetes mellitus become a disease of the past.
Tagged under:american diabetes association Diabetes federal research dollars juvenile diabetes foundation national health pancreas
Topics: Diabetes |
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