Statewide Iowa — Iowans who have diabetes are waging a campaign with emails, calls and letters to members of Congress, urging them to pass what’s called the Special Diabetes Program.
Aryn Lloyd, a volunteer advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, says the program pumps 150-million dollars each year into vital research at the National Institutes of Health.
Funding for the program actually would have expired in September but it was extended through the end of November. Lloyd, a Davenport native who has type 1 diabetes, says members of Congress are typically overwhelmed with requests to support various initiatives as the year’s end nears and she hopes this important program won’t be lost in the fray.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley chaired a hearing in February that called executives from seven large pharmaceutical companies as witnesses to discuss bounding prescription drug costs. The price of insulin, used in treating diabetes, has jumped 500-percent or more in recent years. Lloyd says there’s been little in the way of a resolution.
More than one-and-a-quarter million Americans have type 1 diabetes, while in Iowa, it’s about 262-thousand people. For more information visit www.jdrf.org
