Every year, another 6 million people are diagnosed with type one or type two diabetes, the only disease in America on the rise. It is estimated the disease kills up to 3.5 million people a year … and that number, unfortunately, is expected to grow.
Jumping 40% in just the last decade, today 24 million Americans suffer from diabetes. If you think that number sounds high, consider the additional 126 million diabetes patients living outside of our borders. For these 150 million people, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney damage, cardiovascular disease, and even limb amputations. Even our national chairman, Tom Stern, has been affected by Diabetes. His daughter, Samantha, lives with it every day.
Shockingly, this disease alone claims the lives of more people than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Today it is estimated that by 2025 these astonishing statistics will have doubled.
That’s why, in 1970, the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation was founded with one goal in mind: to CURE diabetes.
Parents of children with diabetes were among the leaders who helped created the DRI, because they knew they couldn't’t rely on for-profit medicine and research methods to cure their children … and so, they took it upon themselves to fight this disease.
Today the Diabetes Research Institute is the world leader in a fight that must be won.
Since those first founders and during subsequent years, the DRI has made great strides towards making diabetes a thing of the past. The DRI has been working every day to discover new and innovative treatments for this disease. Some of their discoveries are the closest anyone has ever come to a legitimate hope for a cure.
The Diabetes Research Institute Foundation serves the needs of the diabetes researchers in important ways.
By funding research directly to help doctors and researchers get to work right away. By granting money to scientists while they are under peer-review so they don’t have to wait to continue their studies and covering remaining costs when existing costs are not enough. The DRI also contributes to patient testing, which is typically the most expensive part of this research.
Headquartered at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, the DRI Federation is a collaboration of 12 medical centers around the world that are working towards the goal of a diabetes-free tomorrow. The partnership allows scientists to better share research information to advance the cause.
Unlike other situations where researchers may hold information close to the vest because of competition within the profession – Doctors at the DRI sign a contract to share information regardless any advancements they discover. Couple that with DRI’s “open-door” policy of allowing any scientist doing like-minded research to use the state-of-the-art facilities and you have a winning formula for a cure.
The Diabetes Research Institute believes that controlling the disease is’t enough. They’re giving patients reason to believe that, one day, they will live without the specter of diabetes hanging over them.
Together, we can eliminate diabetes. But we need your help. If you click on “donate” on this page, you can contribute to a diabetes-free tomorrow.