How to get Gray Ribbons!

The Diabetics International Foundation Wear a Silver/Gray Ribbon for a Diabetes Cure Now! Forum Administrator-David G. Groves dggroves@earthlink.net 1102A Thornwood Drive Birmingham, Alabama 35209 205-871-1662 Here is my original "manifesto" on the Gray Ribbon: #: 729624 S9/GrayRibbonCampaign (CIS:DIABETES) Sb: Manifesto of a Ribbon Fm: Dave Groves Wizop 76703,4223 To: [F] all I went to my favorite Japanese restaurant just now and the muse (no pun intended for members of Section 22) hit me. JDF likes "silver" ribbon (ADA is to stupid to have noticed it yet) as opposed to the "Gray" ribbon we founded here in the forum and I rather like "silver." If you can cope with my stream of conscious style, here are my thoughts, musings and notions: There is, forthcoming, a bit of debate on whether or not the awareness ribbon for diabetes is "gray" or "silver." I am opting for silver. Silver is brighter than gray and look what the March of Dimes did, virtually killing polio, with thin little silver dimes (real silver for all the diabetics too young to remember). Besides, silver would go better with Woopi's collection than a somber gray. Ok, got your contacts in? Thoughts on the coming gray v. silver debate: Silver is polished gray. Only through increased public awareness of diabetes can we find a silver lining to the gray cloud of diabetes, only through public support can we find the badly needed cures. Ok, so silver is gray, but why gray? (Herein comes the true manifesto.) More than 300,000 of over 15,000,000 US diabetics will die because of diabetes this year, millions (excluding the uncounted hundreds of thousands in Africa) and in the middle of this, WHO presents figures to Novo's shareholders indicating an anticipated 250,000,000 diagnosed diabetics world wide by 2020 (I write mortgages that will mature long after then!) WHO's numbers show NO benefit from any current research, just an exponentiating rate of new cases. The US, a world leader in medicine, is shown by WHO studies to have a 17% mortality rate in the first 25 years from diagnosis of Type I and other reports indicate that this is getting worse. It is not a quick "black death" nor is there any clear "white hope," just the gray, expensive, daily drudgery of diabetics grasping for straws. In the US, $1 in $7 (14.3%) of total healthcare expense is devoted to diabetes with only 1 in 40 (2.5%) of the population diagnosed diabetic, ie it costs 572% the health costs of non-diabetics (including AIDS, Cancer, Heart, Stroke, etc) to wear the silver ribbon. 50% of diabetics aren't even diagnosed for all the work of ADA, JDF and NIH. The battle between hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia is preimminently gray. The $300,000,000 wasted on wrong conclusions from the DCCT demonstrate this horridly. Gray is apropos because diabetes is an equal opportunity killer. Gray is the only way to view the tremendous public lack of awareness of the nature of diabetes and still see the amount of affirmative public mis/disinformation that floods our lives. Gray bespeaks the damage that occurs before diagnosis in so many diabetics. Gray bespeaks the lack of leadership that has mislead the diabetic community for the past 75 years with a promise of "cure in 5 years" and an unwritten code of silence preventing diabetics from learning the truth of their disease. Gray belies the fact of "death" being a sign of being a "good diabetic." We the 190,000,000 diabetics diagnosed so far MUST polish the gray and make it silver, lest another generation follow in our footsteps. Awareness is our ONLY ally and it is our responsibility to our fellow diabetics to increase awareness of our situation. Ok, this is a tentative manifesto. That is part of the gray. A manifesto must NOT be tentative, it must be a statement of power and direction. I propose the preceeding in hopes that more articulate, sensitive people can revise it and make it a working document for the diabetics of the world. I post it in dedication to Kathy Phillips and the millions of other dead diabetics no longer here to speak for themselves or join our quest. We must keep the ribbon as OUR symbol, a symbol of the people with diabetes, not our friends or our parents, not a heraldic gem in lieu of our goals, but as a driving meaningful force in our lives as we join hands and hearts and work to insure that no future generation shall expire with diabetes uncured. We must not waiver, neither may we be proud in our authorship, refusing to accept the hands and hearts of those who truly love and care for us in providing support. We must also etch in our hearts the honest love of Jose Garcia and Wilma Reiber who gave birth to this symbol (whatever it's ultimate color) here on this Forum, scarce a month ago. A Silver/Gray Ribbon for a Cure for Diabetes. Wear one, please. Sincerely, /s/ David G. Groves Plano Pin info: Metal Gray Ribbon Lapel Pins are available through the following company at a price of roughly $0.75-$1.00 per pin. Plano Pin Company, Inc. 2701-C W. 15th, Suit 266 Plano, Texas 75075 email: diane@planopin.com http://www.planopin.com Talk to Diane Karlsson 972-867-5152 or 1-800-562-9194 Fax: 972-985-0840