FDA New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year to all of my readers!

I've been quite busy with other parts of my life in recent weeks to do much blogging, and while I'm almost wrapped up with my annual review on diabetes research and the outlook for the coming year, I still had to share the following with everyone: an editorial on The Huffington Post.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, The Huffington Post is perhaps the ultimate blog. It's described as a news website and aggregated weblog founded by Arianna Huffington which features various news sources and columnists. The Huffington Post won the 2006 and 2007 Webby Awards for Best Politics Blog.

All I can say is that I couldn't agree MORE with the following post there:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanne-lenzer-and-shannon-brownlee/a-new-years-resolution-fo_b_156571.html

Also, you will no doubt notice that a number of Diabetes Online Community bloggers have had postings asking you to sign an petition for the FDA. As one of the petition's sponsors, I am joining a group of patient advocates, doctors, diabetes educators and other community leaders who have banned together to "Ask the FDA to Better Serve Diabetes Patients' Needs". As part of this, we're also urging the soon-to-be-named new FDA leadership to recognize the urgent need for more safe and effective diabetes treatment options (and hopefully improve patient outcomes as a result), to reduce barriers to innovation, and imploring the FDA for the immediate creation of a Diabetes Advisory Council, whose goal would be to improve options for patients. Please see the online petition and letter at www.healthefda.com, or visit the widget I've posted on the right-side margin of my blog.

I hope to have a more detailed posting reviewing 2008 and covering the outlook for 2009 when it comes to diabetes care, treatment and progress towards cures in a few days!