For Immediate Release:
Contact: Tonya M. Gonzalez
t1tightropetango@gmail.com
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| Pictured: Amanda (19), Sarah (11) |
California Diabetes Advocates to Visit Washington, D.C. to Urge Greater Federal Funding in the Effort to Stop Diabetes®
Sacramento, CA, February 24, 2011
– In an effort to Stop Diabetes and the devastating effects of this disease in our community, Tonya Gonzalez and Sarah Gonzalez, diabetes advocacy leaders in Sacramento, CA, will join more than 200 diabetes advocates from across the country in Washington, D.C. for the American Diabetes Association’s Call to Congress. Call to Congress is the Association’s premier national advocacy effort and this year’s event will be held March 9 – March 11, 2011.
Attendees will include children and adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, family members of individuals with diabetes, researchers and other health care professionals. All are committed to advocacy efforts at the local, state, and national levels. Gonzalez is the mother of eleven year old Sarah. Sarah was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in March 2010.
Gonzalez and the other advocates will meet with Members of Congress on March 10
th to urge them to support federal funding levels in Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 for diabetes research and prevention programs at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that recognize the magnitude of the nation’s diabetes epidemic. Of the nearly 26 million Americans living with diabetes, more than 2.3 million of them are residents of California. The advocates will also urge their Members of Congress to join the Congressional Diabetes Caucuses, which act to educate Members about diabetes and to support legislation that improves diabetes, research, education and treatment. While in Washington, DC, Gonzalez will also collaborate with other Call to Congress participants from around the country to plan diabetes advocacy efforts back home in their communities.
“Call to Congress brings Diabetes Advocates from across the country together in the movement to Stop Diabetes and provides them with the opportunity to tell our federal government how important it is to fight this deadly epidemic,” said John Griffin, Jr., the Chair of the Board of the American Diabetes Association. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that one in three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime unless our country changes it course . Congress must provide the funding and leadership necessary to invest in research and ultimately save lives.”
Diabetes is a growing epidemic and is taking a devastating physical, emotional and financial toll on our country. The national price tag for diabetes is at an astounding $174 billion per year and that cost is estimated to almost triple in the next 25 years. Factoring in the additional costs of undiagnosed diabetes, prediabetes, and gestational diabetes brings the total diabetes-related cost to $218 billion.
For more information about Call to Congress, please visit
www.diabetes.org/CallToCongress.
About The American Diabetes Association
The American Diabetes Association is leading the fight to stop diabetes and its deadly consequences
