The ADA has become a business interest group and is essentially beholden to its contributors. The list of top contributors below speaks for itself. They are mostly pharmaceutical companies that make a lot of money out of catering for diabetes requirements. You will note that Cadburys Scweppes is in there. It was after Cadburys pledged their financial support that the ADA announced that sweetened drinks are OK for diabetics. Such thinly veiled pandering to vested financial interests makes taking the ADA seriously kind difficult.....
Granted, the ADA does a huge amount of work. They spent $223million dollars doing it in 2006. My question is, to what extent did this benefit diabetics? In the 30 years that I have been a diabetic, I have not used
any services of a diabetes association. A cure, if and when it happens, is likely to come from a commercially funded startup. And I have not found ADAr information particularly useful either. So, no, these groups are not "relevant" in terms of my experience of being a diabetic.
