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Why Do Cancer & AIDS Get More Support Than Diabetes?

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
It's not just diabetes that gets neglected. I can remember seeing a documentary a few years ago, which followed two people who were dying - one of cancer, and the other of chronic heart failure. The family of the chap with heart failure had to battle for every scrap of support, whereas the one with cancer was offered everything he needed to ease his passing.
 
One word; media.

Cancer is the big scary C-word that used to be an automatic death sentence, it has a massive fear factor which the media plays on. Aids etc I think again has a massive fear factor & might have a higher profile due to some of the high prolfile people who have died from it? Unfortunately the media has so comprehensively bundled up diabetes with lifestyle issues & somehow how the idea that it's relatively mild (after all, you can survive decades with it) & I think as a result most people who don't know much about it would feel that whereas the first two are scary killer diseases, diabetes is more or less self inflicted & relatively mild - wrong, I know, but I get the feeling that's 'joe public's perception. :confused:
 
Twitchy said:
One word; media.

Cancer is the big scary C-word that used to be an automatic death sentence, it has a massive fear factor which the media plays on. Aids etc I think again has a massive fear factor & might have a higher profile due to some of the high prolfile people who have died from it? Unfortunately the media has so comprehensively bundled up diabetes with lifestyle issues & somehow how the idea that it's relatively mild (after all, you can survive decades with it) & I think as a result most people who don't know much about it would feel that whereas the first two are scary killer diseases, diabetes is more or less self inflicted & relatively mild - wrong, I know, but I get the feeling that's 'joe public's perception. :confused:
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Have to agree with you Twitchy, that's pretty much how I see it too :( Even when they do wheel out the scare stories about amputations, blindness, kidney disease and heart attacks, it's usually alongside the 'this is totally avoidable' message.
 
And the most annoying thing is that there's an element of truth in the 'avoidable' bit - but only IF they educate, support & supply people properly!! Ie the poor person having the amputation is often (admittedly not always) let down by the system. :(
 
It's all according to 'suddenness' in my view - Cancer arrives suddenly and kills in the same time frame.

T1 arrives suddenly, and initially you DO get that support (Oh poor you, I'd DIE if I had to inject meself' ROFLMAO - not.) But then everyone else just ignores it, and let's face it - so do we, since it is the only way we can live with it. This is not to say we are ever completely neglectful of it generally although Yes! - some people are - but we are much like the duck, aren't we? Serenely gliding along on the surface of the water but our legs going like stink below the surface?

T2 rarely manifests itself suddenly, rather, it creeps.

And that's the speed at which both types normally kill us too. (exclude very severe DKA/HONK and very severe hypos - they aren't the 'norm' either)

Then add the ruddy media .... and the HCPs who tell us 'you just need to try harder' .....
 
Northerner said:
This is written from an American perspective, but the same is true in the UK. What do you think are the main reasons for the disparity in support?

http://www.diabetesdaily.com/voices/2013/03/why-do-canceraids-get-more-support-than-diabetes/
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the answer to the question is in the figures the article presents ...

Death rates per annum

Diabetes 0.22 % ( 1 death per 500 sufferers)

Breast Cancer 1.37 % ( 7 deaths per 500)

Aids 1.31 % ( 6 deaths per 500 )

On those figures diabetes looks "doable"

So again on those figures you would expect breast cancer and aids to get 6 times the support given to diabetes.

But it is probably not like that - the sums spent on diabetes are so huge they probably dwarf the sums on the other two. Have we got the exact figures spent ?
 
Really don't see Diabetes in the same light as Cancer & Aids, I would take diabetes any day over the other 2.
 
toby said:
Really don't see Diabetes in the same light as Cancer & Aids, I would take diabetes any day over the other 2.
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I think this is certainly true. When I was recently diagnosed with a common form of skin cancer (now cured) there was much more concern from my friends and relatives about it than when I was diagnosed (and at death's door!) with diabetes!
 
There's several things at play here. Firstly, 'cancer' isn't one disease, it's an umbrella term covering a huge variety of different problems. That's why people can trot out stats like '1 in 3 people will be affected by cancer' which is great for marketing because they're basically saying to you that statistically, one of your own parents will get cancer.

Meanwhile, HIV has always enjoyed high profile support despite being a relatively rare condition because it got a lot of celebrity backing in the 80s and early 90s - a great job was done of disassociating HIV from the obvious negative connotations (ie. unsafe promiscuity, drug usage).

Returning to cancer, don't forget there is a huge disparity in funding. I've often heard a stat along the lines of that breast cancer accounts for less than 10% of all cancer diagnoses but draws over 90% of the funding received by cancer charities. I think that is frankly a disgusting statistic and I say this as someone who lost an aunt to breast cancer. Think of the ubiquitous pink days etc. - I think it's great that the people behind these are raising cash but they are also squeezing everyone else out of the equation.

That then returns us to diabetes. Think how much support lung cancer concerns get. It's probably near sweet fanny adams because everyone 'knows' lung cancer is your own fault and can only be caused by smoking, and therefore anyone who gets lung cancer doesn't deserve any sympathy, right 🙄

It's the same with diabetes. It's so obvious that T2 is the person's own fault, right 🙄

So the general public don't care - they just assume that if someone has diabetes they're basically as worthless as someone with lung cancer.

And the final point is that, well....diabetes is a really boring disease. I mean, really boring. To the outside observer, it's take a pill and do some exercise and you're done. Whereas cancer's exciting. It's all going in space age machines and being blasted with radiation and your hair falling out and a reasonable probability of dying anyway. And AIDS is just as exciting too. It's all being rake thin and coughing a lot and basically becoming a biological weapon as everyone avoids your bodily fluids.

How on earth can the overwhelming drudgery of counting carbs and balancing diet, exercise and medication compete with that?

The only time diabetes becomes exciting is when you start talking about children and needles and oh how terrible it must be that little Archie or Trinny has to have insulin injections. And of course then people still get bored because they just assume that T1 magically must go away when you become an adult. Whereas I think statistically, you're actually more likely to develop T1 as an adult than as a child. But of course then we get all sorts of hand-wringing MPs who want their photo op with a bunch of kids and spouting all sorts of on-message phrases about how they hope they can fight diabetes so that no child should have to go through this misery.

So yeah, basically as long as diabetes remains extremely boring, retains its image of being self-inflicted and fails to suddenly develop rapid deadly consequences in most cases (instead of the very boring things like losing a limb after 40 years), I don't think we're ever going to get the same support as cancer or AIDS.

And, I must say, I don't think we actually need or deserve that same support. I'd take a boring condition over which I have control, over a malignant and probably fatal thing every time.
 
It's just ignorance piled on ignorance. My dad had cancer of the bladder followed by the liver. When he was dying of the latter the number of people who said 'Oh I never realised he drank' - blithering idiots.

Oh and I love 'one of my parents' for the likelihood of cancer Deus.

Make that BOTH my parents and my (only) older sister.
 
attitudes

The attitudes to people with diabetes t2 really annoy me. People do seem to think its your own fault. In my family its hereditary, my father died from complications. I find it upsetting when people make this assumption when all I did was inherit the wrong genes!
 
I was thinking about this only a day or so ago

The tragedy isn't that cancer recieves more attention, sympathy, whatever than diabetes
The real tragedy is that good self management and a normal life with the latter condition, which to most people should be achievable, seems to meet with so many obstacles. From lack of structured education, lack of encouragement from some health care professionals, a one size fits all approach to treatment regimens, dietary advice, treatment goals,inadequate quantities of test strips prescribed, a hoplelessly unscientific approach to treating the condition ( advising a patient to eat plenty of pasta and then saying they can;t have cake), difficulties with ordering precriptions and fitting in reviews for people to work. And then negative impact of the press so that the general public think they have the right to hector people about their lifestyle when thay don't even understand the effects of carbohydrate or exertion or the dangers of hypoglycaemia. Add in the opposition some people have from colleagues, peers ( given a hard time for needing to test, inject or treat a hypo at school or work), and a heavy handed approach by the dvla ( I agree that driving should stop if a patent is having severe hypos but a years ban is ridiculous
If only people were just allowed to get on with it
 
Abi said:
I was thinking about this only a day or so ago

The tragedy isn't that cancer recieves more attention, sympathy, whatever than diabetes
The real tragedy is that good self management and a normal life with the latter condition, which to most people should be achievable, seems to meet with so many obstacles. From lack of structured education, lack of encouragement from some health care professionals, a one size fits all approach to treatment regimens, dietary advice, treatment goals,inadequate quantities of test strips prescribed, a hoplelessly unscientific approach to treating the condition ( advising a patient to eat plenty of pasta and then saying they can;t have cake), difficulties with ordering precriptions and fitting in reviews for people to work. And then negative impact of the press so that the general public think they have the right to hector people about their lifestyle when thay don't even understand the effects of carbohydrate or exertion or the dangers of hypoglycaemia. Add in the opposition some people have from colleagues, peers ( given a hard time for needing to test, inject or treat a hypo at school or work), and a heavy handed approach by the dvla ( I agree that driving should stop if a patent is having severe hypos but a years ban is ridiculous
If only people were just allowed to get on with it
Click to expand...

Very well put Abi! 🙂
 
Completely with you there Abi!
 
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