What is AADE Up to Now?

If this is true, what is happening to our diabetes educators? This may be why the project I included in this blog about having Associate Diabetes Educators under the umbrella of the AADE has not been in any notice of the meetings since or even mentioned on the American Association of Diabetes Educators website. Now I will stand by that blog about having concerns about the new AADE leaders.

Could it be that the AADE is trying to outdo the Academy of Certified Diabetes Educators (ACDE) and limit what they can do. This surprises me because of the actions by the ACDE in the state of Indiana when they opposed a law passed by the Indiana legislature to allow non-CDEs to help educate other people with diabetes.

At this point, only the state of Kentucky has passed the bill allowing the AADE to be the source of diabetes education. Like the AND (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics), the AADE has attempted to create mandatory certification requirements at the state level, but has been almost completely unsuccessful.

Now the AADE seems to be trying its luck on the federal level. A bill before Congress called the Access to Quality Diabetes Education Act of 2015 (HR 1726, S 1345) will make it more difficult for patients with diabetes to get the help they need to overcome the disease.

The so-called Access to Quality Diabetes Education Act (which opponents are appropriately calling the #DiabetesMiseducation Act) would turn this currently voluntary certification into a legal requirement under Medicare, a costly, unnecessary obstacle for thousands of healthcare workers. If passed, this would leave countless diabetic patients without access to important, life-altering services and possibly limit who could educate the diabetes patients about diabetes.

There is something else you need to know about AADE. It is not an independent, objective organization. In fact, it receives large sums of money from Big Pharma. The organization’s 2014 annual report shows that its top two corporate donors were pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk, with Eli Lilly not far behind.

Diabetes is a rampant, ever-worsening health problem. One recent study found that half of adults in the US have diabetes or are in the pre-diabetes stage. Diabetes is often, but not always, the result of poor diet and lack of exercise. The standard American diet (SAD) tends to create insulin resistance. New studies have emerged showing that consuming highly processed starches is like eating sugar, causing rapid glucose spikes that may over time induce insulin resistance and, eventually, type 2 diabetes.

Conventional doctors often lack the resources to provide much support to diabetic patients. Often they do not have the time to do diabetes education, or they provide seriously misguided information on how to manage or reverse the disease. Health coaches and diabetes educators become particularly important.

And, if the AADE gets this passed, what will happen to those diabetes knowledgeable people that are helping doctors in rural areas? Will they be criminalized? Even scarier is diabetes bloggers; will they criminalize us as well? The future looks very grim and we will be facing two organizations that will be competing to be the only organizations allowed to teach nutrition and to do diabetes education. This will mean that patients will no longer have a choice in learning about diabetes and will suffer because of the advice being promoted by two exclusive organizations.

Because of the AADE leaders that have two titles, CDE and RD after their names, it is not surprising that our diabetes education will take on a new twist – more and more whole grains and more and more carbohydrates. BIG FOOD must be licking their chops with this bill, as well as Big Pharma.

Patients will be advised to consume more high carbohydrate and dense carbohydrate foods and cover their high blood glucose spikes with more diabetes drugs. It will mean that diabetes will become more progressive for the people that willingly follow the advice of CDEs and RDs (registered dietitians). Those of us that have learned the consequences of following this advice know that we cannot go there and need to continue limiting our carbohydrate consumption and increase our fat consumption. Covering increased carbohydrate consumption with more diabetes drugs is not the answer and leads to more overweight people with diabetes.

I have sent my objections to my senators and representative. Read this article for more information. I would suggest that you read this blog by Steve Cooksey.