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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-15 Daily Xml
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JUVENILE DIABETES RESEARCH FOUNDATION

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:49): I rise to bring members' attention to an issue that is of particular interest and concern to me—the issue of type 1 diabetes in children and the annual walk to cure diabetes. For some time now, as many members would be aware, I have been involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation as a supporter, advocate and fundraiser. The same can be said of the Hon. John Dawkins who is also the vice-chair of the parliamentary junior diabetes support group.

As we draw close to October, I have been reflecting on the impact of that disease on those who manage its ramifications in a constant and very physical way every day. Just contemplate the daily regime of testing, injecting and then testing and injecting again every day and every night, and then the next day and night and the day and night after then—and the weeks, months, years and decades after that. I remind members that the effects of the disease on quality of life are not absolute but cumulative. Over time, blood vessels and the tissues and organs they supply sustain permanent damage from chronically high levels of blood glucose.

Because it necessarily affects almost every organ in the body, diabetes can result in major complications, including diabetic kidney, eye and nerve disease, among other diseases, and cardiovascular disease, too. Because type 1 diabetes impacts on children and young people at the beginning of their life, rather than in later years, many face these and other such serious complications while they are still young adults.

This condition can affect any child. Not many people would be aware that about nine out of 10 people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes have no family history of the disease, and there are more diagnoses every day. In fact, the rate of new cases in Australian children is increasing. It is already high in comparison to that experienced in other countries for reasons that are currently unknown.

There is only one way for people with type 1 diabetes to achieve not only the quality of life but also the lifespan their caregivers and the community expect and, of course, that way is a cure, and the key to a cure is research. The JDRF is the world's leading non-profit, non-government organisation in regard to funding for diabetes research. In fact, the foundation has been involved with nearly every development in research for some 40 years.

Because of my contact with the foundation, I have been kept abreast of some of the exciting research developments, and I would like to outline some of them today. According to JDRF, already this year, a South Australian woman has become the first person to receive an islet transplant at our very own Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The type 1 diabetes prevention trial has been launched. This is an exciting study that is being run across Australia and New Zealand by the Diabetes Vaccine Development Centre. Investigators are using an insulin nasal spray vaccine to try to protect people who are genetically at risk of type 1 diabetes.

The federal Labor government's means tested subsidy towards the purchase of an insulin pump for children under 18 who do not have access to private health insurance has been increased. The JDRF-funded trials at Cambridge University have shown that an artificial pancreas dramatically reduces the risk of the potentially deadly hyperglycaemia.

According to a report in TheLancet, JDRF-funded research has developed and successfully tested an automated management system that is able to predict and prevent blood sugar fluctuations. The JDRF-funded research in the US has found that a hormone associated with the body's flight or fight instincts prompts beta cells to grow and to produce insulin.

Also in the US, clinical trials, partly funded by the JDRF, have demonstrated the effectiveness of two new therapies for diabetic and muscular oedema (DME), a common health complication of type 1 diabetes that can result in legal blindness. One is laser therapy combined with a drug for age-related macular degeneration. Improvements noted during the trial could enable a person to read or even drive again. An existing blood pressure medication also appears to retard the progress of severe DME in people with type 1 diabetes.

These are encouraging developments but, as always, more time and more funds are needed before we can say that type 1 diabetes or any diabetes is a thing of the past. That is why I am once again inviting members to join the foundation's 2010 Walk to Cure Diabetes on Sunday 17 October here in Adelaide and to generously support those participating in the event. As I have said before, with issues such as these we are all on the same side.

Time expired.

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