World Diabetes Day

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Jago

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Type 1
So… I’m gonna throw it out there… but … I’m kind of sad right now… I may be in an echo chamber… but WTF?!

Could the powers that be have picked a worse day for World Diabetes Day?! I mean, throughout the western world we (or rather the media) are focusing on various remembrance and veterans days today and every year the focus is the same… In amongst the poppies, medals, tears and the unknown soldier - who has time for the spectre of diabetes?

Yes - 14 Nov was the birthday of Banting - and he was one of the people that discovered insulin (key to our continued existence) …. But 14 Nov wasn’t the day that Banting and Best discovered insulin - It also wasn’t the day that the first human received insulin from an outside source.
So aside from being the birthday of a key figure in the fight against diabetes - it seems a rather arbitrary choice for World Diabetes Day. There are other days that could be picked -
The publication of their (Banting and Best) findings in a scientific journal- the first life saved, why we decide to celebrate diabetes day on the date of the birthday of (only) one of the scientists who found a treatment - confuses me - especially as it falls in amongst various remembrance celebrations.

I am a veteran and whilst I want to embrace and support a world diabetes day - I cannot do so today- today is for our fallen… and I resent that I have to chose! Today is for remembering the dead. Pick another day for us to fight for the living and the falling! 14 Nov will likely never work, it will always be overshadowed by remembrance, (sorry Banting) so let’s change the date and raise awareness!

And even if you think remembrance is pointless - think of the press coverage and resultant lobbying etc. that diabetes could have had.
The press and social media will probably be dying for a fluff piece next week - and that could have been us!

So, in my view - world diabetes day 2021- fail

Thoughts?
 
You can remember more than one thing on any given day. The 14th November isn’t always Remembrance Sunday, next year it will be the 13th.
 
Mmm - must admit I was surprised there is even IS a DD - good grief - EVERY single day is a flippin D day for starters and hardly a good coincidence to fall on the day we are remembering those that gave their lives to enable others to live - except OK, I have frequently bemoaned the fact that I'm eternally grateful to Banting Best & McLeod's dogs they experimented on, so fine - I'll just add the doggies to those remembered today!

BTW - I checked and it was the UN that chose the date.
 
I hear you - kind of - but it’s pretty crappy timing - my point is that World Diabetes say is based on Banting’s birthday - which seems like a pretty arbitrary date. That date will often fall in and around Remembrance Day. This results in in World Diabetes Day competing for airtime with Remembrance Day…

I’m fairly new to all this - but if I hadn’t been a member of Diabetes UK (or had a vested interest in diabetes) I would never have known that today was World Diabetes Day …. A year ago (pre my diagnosis - I had never heard of diabetes day) - so I posit that it is a fail …

I would also argue that the timing of the day (falling as it does alongside or around Remembrance Day) lowers it’s impact. Choosing a different day would offer an opportunity to get diabetes into the public eye in a bigger way…

Of course one can think of two things on the same day, but this is not just an individual thing - surely the point of a world diabetes day is to raise awareness- my point it that choosing a day so close to Remembrance Day (and all the media coverage on that) is foolish. I imagine you would not disagree were I to argue that having Diabetes Day on the 24,25,26 December would be foolish ….

My point was that we are being short-changed by having “our day” a day to raise awareness about our condition, lost amongst the cacophony of another day…. I also suggested that the 14 Nov was rather arbitrary (Banting was not a religious icon, nor did he single handedly discover insulin so why world diabetes day falls on his birthday confuses me).

I would argue that we should be behind finding a meaningful date, that is not shared or influenced by other key (media heavy) dates - so that we can raise the profile of diabetes-
Both in this country and abroad - so we get media attention and can lobby for better treatment for those with diabetes in countries where the NHS does not fund insulin…. Where people literally need to pay to live….
trophywench said:
Mmm - must admit I was surprised there is even IS a DD - good grief - EVERY single day is a flippin D day for starters and hardly a good coincidence to fall on the day we are remembering those that gave their lives to enable others to live - except OK, I have frequently bemoaned the fact that I'm eternally grateful to Banting Best & McLeod's dogs they experimented on, so fine - I'll just add the doggies to those remembered today!

BTW - I checked and it was the UN that chose the date.
Click to expand...
PS - EVERY day - hear you.

I still think it would be nice for us to have “a” day to rally around, fundraise for, raise awareness, lobby/ bring into the public eye…get together and stick it to the big D… show solidarity and hope for a better future…

but I’ve always been a dreamer…
 
Sadly there's no useful info whatever about the dogs; eg I've always wanted to know THEIR names! Met someone one year who worked in a Uni lab and had to leave the gathering we were both at on Xmas morning, early to go into work and feed them. In that case mice, but she said the staff had names for em based on personality and gender.
 
trophywench said:
Sadly there's no useful info whatever about the dogs; eg I've always wanted to know THEIR names! Met someone one year who worked in a Uni lab and had to leave the gathering we were both at on Xmas morning, early to go into work and feed them. In that case mice, but she said the staff had names for em based on personality and gender.
Click to expand...

I hear you - I mean I wish we were talking about the bigger issue ref World Diabetes Day, but it’s weird that these dogs - so key to the creation of insulin and therefore our continued existence, remain nameless and forgotten…
 
To be honest we hardly ever remember that it is world diabetes day, and wouldn’t know what to do about it if we did! Yes Banting and Best did wonderful work and without them many people would not be alive now, including me as my mum would not have lived long enough to have children. But many other people have made life changing discoveries too, do they all get their own special days? We have a little mini celebration of sorts (not sure that’s the right word) on the anniversary of my daughter’s diagnosis, but otherwise it’s just a part of daily life.

I will say though, next year is 100 years since insulin injections became available, there ought to be something to mark that perhaps. What though I have no idea!
 
Yesterday, was World Diabetes Day and Remembrance Sunday in the Commonwealth and a few other countries - not throughout the World*.
Given how many countries there are and how many significant days there are for every country, I am not sure there would ever be a day across the globe that isn't already a day that some people or groups of people are remembered.

In the past, I have seen the whole of November being used to raise awareness of diabetes which, I think, overcomes the possible clash.

*On a recent work trip to Edinburgh, my German colleague was asking about the crosses in Princes Park (he thought they marked the number of covid deaths in Scotland). There is no such day as Remembrance Day in Germany.
 
There was an item on Morning Live (BBC) about Diabetes this morning talking about the new tests that are becoming available which should lead to more reliable diagnosis. They recommended the NHS website for good information.
 
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