President Clinton Announces Major New Investment in Diabetes Research, Treatment, and Prevention (7/13/00)
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                                                         |
| PRESIDENT CLINTON ANNOUNCES MAJOR NEW INVESTMENT IN DIABETES RESEARCH,  |
|                        TREATMENT, AND PREVENTION                        |
|    Urges Congress to Fully Fund Racial Disparities Health Initiative    |
|                              July 13, 2000                              |
|                                                                         |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|



Today, at the national conference of the NAACP, the President will announce
that the National Institutes of Health and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation
will immediately release $5 million to 10 research sites worldwide to fund
new clinical trials attempting to replicate the breakthrough "islet
transplantation" protocol that has apparently cured a small number of
individuals with Type 1 diabetes.   He will also highlight that the
Administration?s Mid-Session review budget commits another $300 million
over five years for research on and prevention of all types of diabetes.
As he outlines this major new financing commitment, the President will
unveil findings from a new report documenting that adolescent birth rates,
infant mortality, and childhood immunization rates are improving across all
segments of the youth populations, including minorities.  However, the
President will also note that racial disparities in health status persist,
and call on the Congress to fully fund the Administration?s initiative to
improve health outcomes and eliminate health disparities amongst American
minority populations.  Today, the President will:

ANNOUNCE SIGNIFICANT NEW FUNDING INVESTMENT IN DIABETES RESEARCH AND
PREVENTION.  Approximately 16 million people nationwide have diabetes, a
chronic disease with no cure that costs the health care system
approximately $98 billion annually.  Diabetes is the leading cause of new
cases of blindness in people aged 20 to 74, affecting up to 24,000 people
each year.  It is also the leading cause of non-traumatic lower-limb
amputations - more than 56,000 a year.  In addition, people with diabetes
are more than twice as likely to have heart disease or a stroke than people
without the disease.  One in four African American women over the age of 55
has diabetes, and African Americans are more likely to have diabetes than
whites.

?    New investment in breakthrough clinical trials treating Type 1
Diabetes.  Today, President Clinton will announce that the National
Institutes of Health will invest $5 million, as part of a larger public
private partnership between NIH and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, in 10
sites worldwide in an attempt to replicate the breakthrough islet
transplantation technique demonstrated to have effectively cured Type 1
diabetes in a small number of patients. There are approximately one million
individuals with Type 1 diabetes nationwide, approximately 25 percent of
which are minorities, and 30,000 new cases are diagnosed every year -
13,000 in children.

?    Highlighted new investment of $150 million over 5 years in research on
diabetes proposed in mid-session review. The President?s Mid-Session review
budget includes $150 million over five additional years at the National
Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for
new research on treatment and prevention of Type 1 diabetes, including ways
to understand and address the immune system abnormalities that cause the
disease and combat complications of the disease.

?    Highlighted new investment of $150 million over five additional years
to prevent and treat diabetes in Native American populations.  The
President?s Mid-Session review budget includes approximately $ 150 million
for over 300 tribal grant programs to prevent the development of Type 2
diabetes in individuals at risk and enhance the diabetes care and education
provided at Indian Health Service clinics through the creation of new
diabetes clinics and teams of health care professionals dedicated to
diabetes care.

?    Highlighted investment of at least $65 million in new or expanded
initiatives dedicated to research on and prevention of Type 2 diabetes in
his FY 2001 budget.  President Clinton announced that his FY 2001 budget
proposes to dedicate at least $65 million to research on Type 2 diabetes,
as part of an overall investment at NIH of $561 million in diabetes
research.  This new funding will be used to fund clinical trials aimed at
developing more effective treatment; prevention strategies and national
education efforts for Type 2 diabetes; research on risk factors for
development and progression of complications for diabetes; and the reasons
for racial disparities in the incidence of diabetes.  This funding will
also be used to expand and speed the search for genes indicating a
predisposition to Type 2 diabetes and basic scientific research on the
molecular basis for the disease.

HIGHLIGHT A NEW REPORT INDICATING THAT THE WELL BEING OF AMERICA?S CHILDREN
CONTINUES TO IMPROVE, BUT MORE MUST BE DONE TO ADDRESS RACIAL DISPARITIES.
Today, the President will highlight the findings of a new government report
entitled "America?s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2000"
by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics detailing
that the health and well-being of American children continues to improve.
Key findings include:

?    Childhood immunization status.  In 1998, approximately 80 percent of
children aged 19 to 35 months had received the full complement of vaccines,
a dramatic increase from 55 percent in 1992.  And while great improvement
has been made among minority children, only 73 percent of African-American
children received the full complement of vaccines as opposed to 82 percent
of white non-Hispanic children.

?    Infant mortality.  In 1998, the national infant mortality rate was 7.2
deaths per 1000 births, a record low - 14 percent lower than the 1993 rate.
However, the rate for African American infants (13.7 deaths per 1000
births) is still more than twice the rate for white and Hispanic infants (6
deaths per 1000 births).

?    Teen birth rates.  The national teen birth rate dropped for the
seventh year in a row to a record low of 30 births per 1000 for young women
ages 15 to 17 years old.  The sharpest decline was in the birth rate for
African American teens ages 15 to 17, for whom the rate dropped by nearly
one-third from 1991 to 1998.

?    Low birth-weight babies.  Although low birth-weight rates are rising
for children of all races, in part because of the higher number of twin and
triplet births has increased, 13.2 percent of African American children
were born at a low birth-weight in 1998 as opposed to 6.6 percent of white
children.

?    Violent crimes committed by young people.  In 1998, the serious
violent crime offending rate for youth was 27 crimes per 1,000 adolescents
- a drop by more than half from 1993 and the lowest level recorded since
1973.

While the racial disparities in these indicators is troubling, it is
encouraging that enrollment in early childhood education is up,
particularly among children living in poverty, among children with mothers
who were not in the labor force, and among black, non-Hispanic children.

URGE THE CONGRESS TO FULLY FUND THE ADMINISTRATION?S RACE AND HEALTH
INITIATIVE.  The President will note more needs to be done to address
racial health disparities.  For example, African Americans are 40 percent
more likely to die from heart disease than whites.  Native Americans suffer
significantly higher rates of infant mortality and heart disease.  And
Asian Americans are as much as five times more likely to die from liver
cancer associated with hepatitis.  In order to address these and other
racial health disparities, President Clinton launched a new initiative in
1998 that set a national goal of eliminating by the year 2010, longstanding
disparities in health status that affect racial and ethnic minority groups
in six key areas: 1) infant mortality; 2) diabetes; 3) cancer; 4) heart
disease; 5) HIV/AIDS and 6) immunizations. The President?s FY 2001 Budget
includes $35 million for these demonstration projects. Recently, the Senate
provided only $30 million.  The President will reiterate his call to the
Congress to fully fund this critical initiative.

                                   # # #



President and First Lady | Vice President and Mrs. Gore
Record of Progress | The Briefing Room
Gateway to Government | Contacting the White House | White House for Kids
White House History | White House Tours | Help
Privacy Statement

Help

Site Map

Graphic Version

T H E   W H I T E   H O U S E