Here's why one person dies every 6 seconds from diabetes type 2. The ignorance and perversion in the system rarely this obvious.
During the world diabetes congress in Canada this week there was a debate on whether we should "bother" trying to prevent diabetes. An epidemic that is now affecting 415 million people around the world (up from 30 million in the 80s) - threatening to bankrupt the economies of entire countries.
I think it's in very poor taste from the organizers to even stage this debate.
The person arguing for the "No, let's not bother" side was Professor Guntram Schernthaner. Intriguingly he's also on the payroll of Amgen, AstraZeneca/Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis, Servier and Takeda. All companies selling drugs for treating diabetes.
Let's not bother preventing diabetes. If we don't, hundreds of millions of people will die and the health care systems of entire countries might crash. But the more people get the disease, the more these companies will profit. And the more their pet doctors will be paid.
PS
The correct topic for the debate would have been: "Why is our diabetes prevention attempts failing so badly? Are we doing it completely wrong?"
And the correct answer would be yes.
