Do We Need Diabetes Hero Worship?

Apparently, this is a need or many diabetes newsletters would not be featuring a celebrity with diabetes in almost every issue. Now comes the difficult part. No, I do not admire them because I seldom follow them or know who they are. To me they are just another person with diabetes.

Where I will agree with the hero worship is what these celebrities are doing to shed light on diabetes at the risk of their own careers. With so many people keeping their diabetes a secret, at least they can see other people proclaiming diabetes openly. If this will loosen some people up and have them come out of the closet, then that is a good thing.

We do need leaders to step to the fore and help people unite to gain recognition for diabetes and the invisible chronic disease it is. Until people recognize this, we will continue to lag behind breast cancer and other diseases like Alzheimer's and heart disease that are receiving attention on a national basis and even world basis. This should be a goal of diabetes and we need to work harder in 2012 to bring the American Diabetes Association and the other associations in the USA into step with the World Diabetes Federation.

We need to unite under one symbol and speak in unison for the research for a cure. There have been many discoveries in the last years that could relieve the stress of diabetes, but unfortunately, the division in this country including FDA is not helping these earn their recognition as popular aids in the battle against diabetes. Granted they are not cures, but they could help many individuals in their management of diabetes.

Until the celebrities unite with us in this cause, their voices are muted and the value they could do only benefits a few people with diabetes in need of accepting their diabetes and advocating for education of more people.

So rather than dismiss celebrities like I have been known to do, I will be attempting to be more accepting of them. It is my hope to encourage more of them to advocate not only for education, but to unite with us to unify people in the Diabetes Online Community to unite behind one symbol. We need to have the celebrities work for the unification of the diabetes organizations in accepting one symbol. That symbol is the blue circle of the World Diabetes Federation.