quotable quotes - December 2009
fighting words
"Let us promise to integrate non-communicable disease into existing health systems, particularly at the primary care level. No person should die from diabetes due to a lack of insulin or medications and no family should have to suffer from the cost burden of diabetes. Accidents of geography and history should not determine who lives or dies today… It is time to reverse the diabetes epidemic.”
- Incoming president of the International Diabetes Federation Jean-Claude Mbanya, MD, PhD, FRCP (University of Yaounde, Yaounde, Cameroon), on the global diabetes epidemic in his closing speech at the organization’s biannual meeting.
political back-and-forth
"Politics drives everything. I remember someone from FDA saying they remembered being in front of Congress and having Congressmen saying ‘you’re killing people.’ I think we’ll be back in front of them saying ‘how can you be withholding these drugs, you’re killing people.”
- Kelly Posner, PhD (Columbia University, New York), commenting on political changing of the tide at the 5th Annual Obesity and Diabetes Drug Development Summit in Arlington, VA.
connected at the hip
"Diabetes and obesity are not only twin epidemics, they are Siamese twins!”
- Donna H. Ryan, MD, FACP (Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA), opening her presentation on the role of weight control in diabetes prevention at the 5th Annual Obesity and Diabetes Drug Development Summit.
thoughts on reform
"We built this model to improve the budgetary and health outcome information available to federal policymakers… Without significant changes in public or private strategies, [the diabetes] population and cost growth are expected to add a significant strain to an overburdened health care system.”
- Elbert Huang, MD, MPH (University of Chicago) and colleagues, concluding their recent study predicting overwhelming prevalence and costs for diabetes in the upcoming years.
