Diabetics: a social crisis in the making
The New York Times is running a series on diabetes. The first article remarks on the dramatic increase in diabetes, largely due to inactivity and obesity:
[T]the velocity of new cases among all races has accelerated significantly from just a few decades ago. Genetics cannot explain this surge, because the human gene pool does not change that fast. Instead, the culprit is thought to be behavior: faulty diet and inactivity. Dr. Vinicor, of the Centers for Disease Control, likes to use this expression: “Genetics may load the cannon, but human behavior pulls the trigger.”
The article then goes on to talk about the dire social effects of a population decimated at the prime of life by the diabetes contracted in youth:
Predicting the path of a disease is always speculative, but without bold intervention diabetes threatens to hamper some of society’s most basic functions.
For instance, no one with diabetes can join the military, though service members whose disease is diagnosed after enlisting can sometimes stay. No insulin-dependent diabetic can become a commercial pilot.
Shereen Arent, director of legal advocacy for the American Diabetes Association, says she already fields 150 calls a month from diabetics who complain that they are being discriminated against in the workplace, double the number just a couple of years ago. She mentioned a typical case, a man rejected for a job at a baked-bean factory in Texas as a safety risk. “If this continues,” she said, “we’re in big trouble.”