Yes, I am making this accusation and it
makes sense to me. Why else would people of importance in the
American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the American Association of
Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) speak so confidently about type 2
diabetes not needing to test regularly and to rely on their A1c
results only.
Dr. Robert Ratner, chief scientific and
medical officer of the American Diabetes Association and Alan J.
Garber, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, Biochemistry &
Molecular Biology, and Molecular & Cellular Biology at Baylor
College of Medicine, Houston, Texas are both recipients of money from
Big Pharma. I also have to wonder if they also receive large sums of
money from Big Food, Big Agriculture, and Big Chemical. These two
doctors and others within these organizations received big sums of
money to limit what most patients can do.
This is why they insist that we do not
test to make the complications happen. This in turn is a favor to
the rest of the doctors to give them patients to treat. It is a
shame that the insurance industry has to go along with the
pronouncements of these doctors, but they are in the business of
showing a profit. Therefore, their leaders are more than happy to
limit testing supplies. What they do not realize is that the
complications will cause greater expenses in the future than the test
strips will cost now.
This is part of the reason I have such
a dislike for the people in the ADA and the AACE that are in a
position to influence guidelines and position statements. This in
turn affects most of the actions of other healthcare professionals in
the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) and the Academy
of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND). This is also the reason most of
their members do not talk about testing or promote testing.
This leaves people with type 2 diabetes
who cannot afford extra test strips, managing their diabetes in the
dark without the means to use testing supplies that will aid them in
more efficient diabetes management. These patients will not be able
to determine the most reliable time to test postprandial and often
find it impossible to test in pairs to help them decide how a meal
affects their blood glucose levels. Those of us that have been able
to do this have found that we are better able to manage our diabetes.
We have found that by reducing the
number of carbohydrates consumed, we are better able to manage our
diabetes. Yet both members of the AADE and AND continue to promote
carbohydrates and reduced fat and this makes diabetes management more
difficult for most people with diabetes. Yes, the ADA has opened the
door for low carbohydrate consumption, but the members of these
organizations have yet to put this into practice. Maybe the officers
have accepted this, but the general membership still follows the old
guidelines and the two organizations have not produced new position
statements to affirm to the membership the acceptance of anything but
the prior guidelines.
All of this creates an uphill battle
for people with diabetes that desire to manage diabetes at a level to
prevent complications. It is still possible, but takes more effort
and education which most with type 2 diabetes do not receive. Most
are required to self-educate to be able to manage their diabetes.
