Diabetes and the Trash Food Industry - $92 billion in medical costs

[Guest guest]

For pharmco investors, " $92 billion in medical costs " is remunerative

compensation for diabetes' negative aspects. Investing in insulin

futures remains a wise strategy. Imagine owning 100 tank cars full of

insulin. If that much insulin is in your portfolio, then keeping

junk-food alive and well is sound business strategy.

* * * *

January 11, 2006 by the Boston Globe

Diabetes and the Trash Food Industry

by Derrick Z.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0111-23.htm

Type-2 Diabetes is sweeping so rapidly through America we need not waste

time giving children bicycles. Just roll them a wheelchair. Forget the

basketballs and baseballs. Give them Braille flash cards. The next thing

you know, iPods, Game Boys and Xboxes will come with glucose meters,

beeping ''Sorry to interrupt your song or movie, but it will not

continue until you use me. "

One of the saddest emerging facts about Type 2 diabetes is how it is

robbing children of their childhood. It is well on its way to dropping

the overall life expectancy of Americans. This grim world of

amputations, blindness, heart disease and kidney failure, once assumed

to be confined to those with wrinkles, has descended into the tender world.

We have created this monster by allowing trash food marketers to prey on

our children and by letting our children disappear into video screens.

The number of Americans with type-2 diabetes, the kind that can be

controlled by exercise and eating right, has exploded from 5.8 million

in 1980 to 18.2 million today, according to the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention.

An American child born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of contracting

diabetes in his lifetime. An African American has a 2 in 5 chance. At

current rates, every other Latina born in 2000 will get the disease.

Fast food, soda and sugar-snack companies are well represented in the

Fortune 500, but the costs on the other end are staggering.

The CDC estimates that diabetes costs the United States $92 billion in

medical costs and $40 billion in indirect costs, such as restricted or

lost worker productivity. While diabetics now make up 6.3 percent of the

population, the American Diabetes Association estimates that the disease

accounts for 19 percent of health spending in the United States.

So far, none of that has captured the imagination of Americans outside

of doctors, public health officials, and those school districts that

have kicked out the soda machines. That is, except for pharmacies, super

stores and the medical supplies industry which are gearing up for the

miserable fallout.

In one of its 2005 reports, the marketing information firm IRI said that

sufferers of diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol are ''ideal targets

for retailer and manufacturer programs aimed at driving sales growth.

Many ailments such as diabetes and high cholesterol are regularly

treated with prescription medication. For retailers and manufacturers,

this translates to frequent shopping trips and thus, countless

opportunities to build relationships and drive non-prescription behavior. "

In the case of diabetics, the ''relationship " would be built around

low-sugar, low-carbohydrate and low-fat foods and beverages. It also

means that the expanding racks for diabetes management supplies, such as

insulin, syringes and blood sugar meters also mean more customers who

buy other items in the stores. ''This is a hotly competitive area for

retailers, " Kerrylyn Whalen , a diabetes specialist for

ShopKo's pharmacies, told the trade publication Retail Merchandiser.

''You are serving a niche that is needed for patient care but is also a

huge sales driver. It's not just the right thing to do, it's profitable. "

Ed Staffa, vice president of member services for the National

Association of Chain Drug Stores, added in Retail Merchandiser, ''These

are repeat patients. On an ongoing basis, the same individuals purchase

products month in, month out. If you are able to engage them as a

patient initially, you have their patronage for the rest of their life. "

While business waits for the diseased to fall to them, the greater story

is tragic. The nation our children are being born into is one in which

they are more likely to be acquainted with sugar test strips than final

exams in college.

The oversexed marketing and perfect bodies thrown at youth in the name

of fashion will become a mockery as the young grow old before the age of

50, with brittle nails, callouses, over-sensitive skin, balding scalps,

punctured bodies and of course, lost limbs.

The nation has not yet had the courage to stand up against trash food

and has forgotten how to send our kids out to play. The bodies of our

young are becoming trash and there is no time to play.

Email to: jackson@...

© 2006 The Boston Globe

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