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Balance

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Becca, I've followed on in the facebook DUK page from you and someone else has now responded as well. Lets see what happens. I wonder how long it will take before DUK respond or until that person that doesn't like us (remember him) pops up to cause more trouble.
 
Becca said:
Blimey, i think a campaign is a good idea 🙂 I like those lol!!

Might start another thread on facebook if anyone cares to join me? I've just spotted that other thread but thought i would do an updated one....
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Hi Becca, I'd like to support the campaign on Facebook, but haven't a clue what I'm doing as far as 'Facebook' goes. I did join, but didn't get much further - how does this old dinosaur reach the bit you're talking about? also will be away from tomorrow for a while, so won't act until I get back.
 
How about 'Insulin Needs Symathy Unlike Loner In Nursing (INSULIN for short ha ha)
 
runner said:
Hi Becca, I'd like to support the campaign on Facebook, but haven't a clue what I'm doing as far as 'Facebook' goes. I did join, but didn't get much further - how does this old dinosaur reach the bit you're talking about? also will be away from tomorrow for a while, so won't act until I get back.
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Hi Runner, can you add me as your friend on facebook or if you give me your name or email address (on the private message bit) I'll add you. Then you can see the link where to go or I'll show you.
 
Hi,

It?s the Balance team here at Diabetes UK. There have been a lot of comments and feedback about this opinion letter and we wanted to let you all know our reason for publishing it.

The original reader letter disagreeing with injecting in public was published in the ?Your Letters? section of our March/April issue, where it clearly states that the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of Diabetes UK.

We feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion even when they don?t agree with the charity, the magazine or other readers. The reader in question is a member of Diabetes UK, and we aim to be as open as possible when publishing readers' viewpoints in the opinion pages of Balance. Differing opinions are allowed and indeed encouraged to stimulate debate and that is what this letter-writer has done.

Such extreme views do help bring out important matters and in the following issue (May/June), we printed sixteen letters disagreeing with this opinion. In the current issue of Balance (July/August), more responses are printed and we have also included a reply from the original letter-writer to allow her to respond to the high volume of criticism. We do appreciate that her reply might have offended some readers, but we only ever censor letters that are libellous to an individual or factually incorrect.

The reader?s opinion was in no way reflected in any of the regular articles in Balance, written by members of staff (and not influenced by any corporate sponsors).

Finally, we would like to reassure you that at Diabetes UK, we do listen to our supporters and respond to issues you feel are important. In fact, after hearing from our young supporters about the ignorance and misconceptions surrounding diabetes and insulin injections, we created two short videos aimed at educating young people about the condition and the need for injections. These are available on My Life, our web space for young supporters, at http://www.diabetes.org.uk/bus and http://www.diabetes.org.uk/record

We hope this helps clarify the issue, and we apologise if any of the comments published have caused offence.

Sincerely,

The Balance team
Diabetes UK
 
DiabetesUK said:
Hi,

It?s the Balance team here at Diabetes UK. There have been a lot of comments and feedback about this opinion letter and we wanted to let you all know our reason for publishing it.

The original reader letter disagreeing with injecting in public was published in the ?Your Letters? section of our March/April issue, where it clearly states that the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of Diabetes UK.

We feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion even when they don?t agree with the charity, the magazine or other readers. The reader in question is a member of Diabetes UK, and we aim to be as open as possible when publishing readers' viewpoints in the opinion pages of Balance. Differing opinions are allowed and indeed encouraged to stimulate debate and that is what this letter-writer has done.

Such extreme views do help bring out important matters and in the following issue (May/June), we printed sixteen letters disagreeing with this opinion. In the current issue of Balance (July/August), more responses are printed and we have also included a reply from the original letter-writer to allow her to respond to the high volume of criticism. We do appreciate that her reply might have offended some readers, but we only ever censor letters that are libellous to an individual or factually incorrect.

The reader?s opinion was in no way reflected in any of the regular articles in Balance, written by members of staff (and not influenced by any corporate sponsors).

Finally, we would like to reassure you that at Diabetes UK, we do listen to our supporters and respond to issues you feel are important. In fact, after hearing from our young supporters about the ignorance and misconceptions surrounding diabetes and insulin injections, we created two short videos aimed at educating young people about the condition and the need for injections. These are available on My Life, our web space for young supporters, at http://www.diabetes.org.uk/bus and http://www.diabetes.org.uk/record

We hope this helps clarify the issue, and we apologise if any of the comments published have caused offence.

Sincerely,

The Balance team
Diabetes UK
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it does clarify the stance that duk seem to have that it is willing to let its name be soiled by someone who as a retired nurse should have a better grasp of the fact we as diabetics on insulin take the drug so we can stay alive. it is also very disappointing to know that you felt her letters where stimulating healthy debate which i can assure you they were not. all they have done in my eyes is alienate you from the very people you are ment to be championing.

i for one will never again support duk in the ways i have done in the past
 
Same here , you have lost my support , I thought you were Diabetes Support ????? doesn't sound like it to me , thanks for that 😡😡
The fact that you let her spout that rubbish once was enough but a second time , crazy .

With agencys like you supporting diabetics i think we are better off without you .
 
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it is bad enough the amount of stuff we have to put with as diabetics without having to read someones narrow minded comments when the space her drivel took up could have been put to better use. i for one would have like to have seen the space used to have one of our fellow diabetessupport members poems published. northerner has sent you in a few and to date he has had none published. now if the diabetesuk staff who have registered on here want to take a look at all the positive comments he gets after each and everyone of his poems he delights us with on the forum then i am sure they will see that this is the sort of thing they should be publishing and not negative comments.
 
this can have an awful effect on some if not most diabetics we already have to deal with funny looks raised eyebrows without some mouthy nurse spouting off her rubbish,like addict said wheres the support thats what it all about
 
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So they only censor letters that are "libellous to an individual or factually incorrect". Does this mean it's OK to print ones that are deeply offensive to a large number of their readers, comparing us to heroin junkies and claiming we are selfish ("I was disappointed but not really surprised by the in yer face, I?m doing what I like regardless of anyone else attitude of so many to whom ?I? and ?Me? appear to be the most important words"). I have not been very fond of them for a while but now since these letters I am starting to seriously regret renewing my membership recently.
 
DiabetesUK said:
...Differing opinions are allowed and indeed encouraged to stimulate debate and that is what this letter-writer has done......The Balance team
Diabetes UK
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I'm sorry, but I think you have shown severe misjudgement in this matter. Printing the first letter - yes, this stimulated debate. It also upset a great number of people, many of whom were already feeling vulnerable, maybe depressed at the prospect of living with this chronic, dangerous condition, and who were now made to feel even more self-conscious at performing an activity essential to their well-being. One would expect that fellow insulin users would, in the vast majority, oppose the views expressed in that first letter - but this is not what people are looking for, they are looking for the support of NON-INSULIN users to accept that this is something that needs to be done with minimal fuss or disruption - making them feel as normal as can be.

This woman did not need a 'right of reply', she had already expressed her views. Instead you allowed her valuable space on your pages to use even more inflammatory and insulting language, in airing her prejudices. To suggest that we are 'junkies' and 'in yer face' is deeply insulting to me, and such intolerance should not be given 'the oxygen of publicity' (or, as Linda Smith once said, 'the oxygen of oxygen').

I am fairly newly diagnosed and have limited experience of injecting in public. However, even on those occasions when I have received the consent of those around me, I still feel very aware that there may be other eyes looking disapprovingly, or indeed with disgust, at my actions.

I think you have lost a great deal of support because of your misjudged policy, which is surely the opposite of what you should be trying to achieve.
 
Whilst I agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion I don't think you folks at Diabetes UK have given any thought to how offensive this woman has been. Her first letter was bad enough and now you've given her the 'opportunity to respond to the high volume of criticism', by being even more offensive and rude. How dare she, as a diabetic or non diabetic or a member of Diabetes UK or not, term us insulin dependant diabetics as 'junkies' and make a comparison between us and drug users. It's extremely offensive and I'm really struggling to understand why you would even consider publishing such rubbish. I have completely lost faith in Diabetes UK and am already seeking ways to cancel my membership, as I am sure many more people will.......big, big mistake.
 
allisonb said:
Whilst I agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion I don't think you folks at Diabetes UK have given any thought to how offensive this woman has been. Her first letter was bad enough and now you've given her the 'opportunity to respond to the high volume of criticism', by being even more offensive and rude. How dare she, as a diabetic or non diabetic or a member of Diabetes UK or not, term us insulin dependant diabetics as 'junkies' and make a comparison between us and drug users. It's extremely offensive and I'm really struggling to understand why you would even consider publishing such rubbish. I have completely lost faith in Diabetes UK and am already seeking ways to cancel my membership, as I am sure many more people will.......big, big mistake.
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if you pay by direct debit then just cancel it. also give them a call and let them know you want to cancel your membership and they should just action it for you 🙂
 
Hang your heads in shame DUK. I think you have done some serious damage here. You are on icy grounds anyway as your school campaigns suck big time but this takes the biscuit. I have also cancelled my DD and won't be paying next year. I have taken up membership of JDRF and I recommend others do as well. They are actually doing real good stuff, it is them that are behind the closed loop, artificial pancreas thing. They also listen to their members very well. I have had a meeting with them before.

DUK I hope you get this sorted and perhaps print an apology, you are going to lose some serious amounts of membership over this. None of that is factual stuff. It is rubbish.
 
Adrienne said:
...DUK I hope you get this sorted and perhaps print an apology, you are going to lose some serious amounts of membership over this. None of that is factual stuff. It is rubbish.
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Yes, when I saw the letter/post from DUK I thought they might be more apologetic - somethig along the lines of 'this is why we did it, but clearly we got it wrong and are sorry, we'll review our policies in future so that there is no repetition'. Instead, all we got was 'this is why we did it, we knew some people wouldn't like it but they'll just have to lump it'.

Badly, badly misjudged. I ran the Great South Run for DUK last year and raised several hundred pounds. This year I think I will be running it for Sightsavers...
 
DiabetesUK said:
Hi,

It’s the Balance team here at Diabetes UK. There have been a lot of comments and feedback about this opinion letter and we wanted to let you all know our reason for publishing it.

The original reader letter disagreeing with injecting in public was published in the ‘Your Letters’ section of our March/April issue, where it clearly states that the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of Diabetes UK.

We feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion even when they don’t agree with the charity, the magazine or other readers. The reader in question is a member of Diabetes UK, and we aim to be as open as possible when publishing readers' viewpoints in the opinion pages of Balance. Differing opinions are allowed and indeed encouraged to stimulate debate and that is what this letter-writer has done.

Such extreme views do help bring out important matters and in the following issue (May/June), we printed sixteen letters disagreeing with this opinion. In the current issue of Balance (July/August), more responses are printed and we have also included a reply from the original letter-writer to allow her to respond to the high volume of criticism. We do appreciate that her reply might have offended some readers, but we only ever censor letters that are libellous to an individual or factually incorrect.

The reader’s opinion was in no way reflected in any of the regular articles in Balance, written by members of staff (and not influenced by any corporate sponsors).

Finally, we would like to reassure you that at Diabetes UK, we do listen to our supporters and respond to issues you feel are important. In fact, after hearing from our young supporters about the ignorance and misconceptions surrounding diabetes and insulin injections, we created two short videos aimed at educating young people about the condition and the need for injections. These are available on My Life, our web space for young supporters, at http://www.diabetes.org.uk/bus and http://www.diabetes.org.uk/record

We hope this helps clarify the issue, and we apologise if any of the comments published have caused offence.

Sincerely,

The Balance team
Diabetes UK
Click to expand...

Some interesting comments you make and your member makes.

First, who in the right mind would publish an off the wall demented rant as the one in the current issue?

Second, editorial staff are there to do a job, moderate and present unbiased, objective information on a given subject. Your excuse of using the term 'this doesn't reflect the view or opinions of the publishers et-al' is a useless term, clearly anyone with half a brain cell would realise by your own admission that the comment against the original letter was substantial, you had difficulty publishing anything really in support of these claims - because they are in the main without any foundation.

To then go on an post a reply where the author decrees that we all inject incorrectly, when they have no experience of injecting themselves, and label diabetics as junkies is surely libellous, I certainly for one who has never touched recreational drugs actually find that this generic, but explicit label applied to me by the author could be defamatory, as anyone knowing I am diabetic who reads that letter and seeing it is from a nurse (retired) could think I am a junky, there is enough ignorance about diabetes enough without a supposed supporting organisation deciding such a letter was suitable for publication.

As such, there in I initiate my claim against you, the publishers of this magazine.

Your excuses are, I am afraid rejected by myself.
 
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Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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