National Diabetes Month
Floor Speech
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to coanchor this CBC Special Order hour. I thank my distinguished colleague, Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida.
For the next 60 minutes we have a chance to speak directly to the American people on issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the constituents we represent, and all Americans.
Our Special Order hour today will focus on a very urgent and pressing issue for our community, and that is the recognition of November as National Diabetes Month.
Brown), my colleague from the city of Cleveland.
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished colleague, Congresswoman Shontel Brown from Ohio's 11th Congressional District, for her leadership within the Congressional Black Caucus and for highlighting and focusing our attention and, indeed, the Nation's attention on this critical issue of diabetes.
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the honorable Congressman Payne from the great State of New Jersey for his remarks.
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank our chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Chairman Steven Horsford, for those powerful words. Again, I thank our esteemed colleague, Congresswoman Shontel Brown of Ohio, for having led this effort.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield to my colleague from the great State of Louisiana, the distinguished Congressman, Mr. Troy Carter.
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from the great State of Louisiana, Congressman Troy Carter, for his participation.
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Cherfilus- McCormick for her statement.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring vaunted and valuable attention to one of the greatest health challenges plaguing the American people and to declare that this body needs to do more to alleviate the pain.
The month of November has been designated as being National Diabetes Month and the goal of this designation is to highlight the disproportionate impact diabetes continues to have on the communities I represent.
Never before has one chronic disease so diabolically focused its fury on Black and Brown people, which, of course, begs the question as to whether or not the proliferation of this silent killer is connected to the quality of food and economic choices of those very same communities.
The physiology of Black and Brown people is not in any way predisposed to be more vulnerable to this disease than any other group of people, and yet diabetes continues to destroy Black and Brown lives at a rate that is more than disproportional but diabolic as well.
Since 2001, the proliferation of Type 2 diabetes among Black and Brown youth has increased at a rate of 95 percent, Mr. Speaker.
According to the National Health Institute, young people between the ages of 10 and 19 years of age have seen instances of Type 2 diabetes double among them. Two out of every 100 Black and indigenous American youth now suffer from this disease, and it is accelerating at an alarming pace.
As I stand before you here, I shudder to think about the implications associated with the level of increase, what that will mean for the quality of life of families of young people currently sinking into this chronic abyss.
Whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not, the way we currently treat, talk about, and address this disease will leave this country vulnerable to a medical tsunami the likes of which no one on this planet has ever seen.
We cannot be silent about this because if we do nothing, African Americans are twice as likely as any other group to die from this disease.
If we do nothing, African-American adults are twice as likely to be hospitalized because of diabetes and suffer long-term complications more than any other group.
If we do nothing, Black people in this country are three times more likely to be diagnosed with renal disease which, of course, is a portal that leads to a whole host of other debilitating morbidities.
If we just sit around and dither, Black people will be 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with a disease that has the power to kill them. Let us not forget that African Americans currently make up 13 percent of the American population. When 95 percent of the young people that make up 13 percent of your entire population are currently slipping down the slippery slope of diabetes, someone has to sound the alarm.
This is why every American should be glad that President Biden has declared November to be National Diabetes Month, and all of us should be glad because this is a conversation we need to have. The time for us to act as if this is not a national emergency is over.
Diabetes in the American population has crossed the Rubicon. We are well beyond the point of no return, and if we do not decide that the health and healthcare of every American, particularly African Americans, is a priority equal in its importance to national security, then we will rue the day we buried our heads in the sand and preoccupied ourselves with the seasonal foolishness of partisan politics.
This is not a red State or blue State issue. The American people are dying. The American people are suffering. The American people are looking to the government they elected to do something in its power to help, help them fight and ward off the devastating effects of this debilitating disease.
Last year, millions of Americans reported hoarding insulin because of shortages. The overwhelming need is manifesting itself nationwide. Who would have thought that people who live in the world's greatest country in the history of the world would have to hoard medication? Could any of us have ever imagined that the need for insulin would be so expansive that hoarding the medication would be a necessity or even an option, but this is where we find ourselves. This is the reality millions of Americans have to live with every day.
This is the minute-to-minute struggle for countless American families trying not to lose hope amid a sea of chronic and cataclysmic medical consequences. To those of you, I say hold on and don't give up. If we are determined to do something about it here in this Congress, we can say that elections have consequences because, indeed, they do.
One of the positive outcomes of the last Presidential election is the fact that President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., is the duly elected President of the United States, and he helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act to help us deal with the runaway cost of insulin. Now insulin is $35 a month. That is very much a welcome relief in my neighborhood.
As an American, not only as a Democrat, I am glad that we have someone in the Oval Office who cares about what this disease is doing to our country. It says a lot about the character and integrity of the President that he would go out of his way to address this issue when so many other problems have been vying for his attention over the last 3 years.
However, I also say to you, we can do more. We simply cannot avoid the connection between the systemic inequities of America and the incredible racial disparities by which diabetes continues to proliferate in the Black community.
In fact, in a recent study conducted at Emory University, it was suggested, if not directly implied, that structural racism is accelerating the diabetes crisis in the United States of America. Therefore, potentially what we have here is not just a medical crisis, what we have happening in America is also a social and a cultural crisis.
When it comes to diabetes and the Black community, it would appear that our current crisis is the result of a strange confluence of issues. Nutritional opportunities, access to fruit and vegetables, and the inability to afford healthy nutritional options have all come together to make an already terrible situation worse.
More and more researchers are discovering that the race, geography, and economy of a community can be an overwhelming determining factor for understanding the impact of this debilitating and chronic disease. This is why I have been a major proponent of the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, the GusNIP. I am a major supporter of this program because it allows the Secretary of Agriculture to provide funding opportunities to conduct and evaluate projects providing incentives to increase the purchase of fruits and vegetables for low- income consumers.
For many years, the other party has wanted us to believe that government is the problem, but what they forget to tell you is that sometimes national problems require national solutions; and there is a role, indeed, for government.
In this program, it is critical for us to also understand that we cannot retreat on SNAP. There are too many Americans who need the supplemental nutritional assistance. Let us be clear, the same way we incentivize big corporations and wealthy individuals with tax breaks, we should have the moral courage to incentivize healthy choices for low-income Americans.
What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. If incentives work for rich people, then let them also work to save the lives of working-class and low-income Americans.
As I stand here tonight, I am actively working to see this program is fully funded this year. This is something we must do. We owe it to the American people to do everything we can to help them save lives.
Let me simply say that it is about time we start incentivizing things that keep people alive and not just behaviors that make people more money. It is my great hope and expectation that the expansion of GusNIP will allow the program to run more efficiently and increase cooperation between recipients and the Federal Government.
I also believe that a greater emphasis needs to be placed on the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, created back in the Obama administration to provide grants and technical assistance to empower families to have access to fresh, healthy, and affordable foods in rural and urban communities that are underserved.
Most people fail to realize that the overwhelming instances of hunger in America are not happening in American cities. It is, rather, taking place in rural communities. This is why I am pleased that the Department of Agriculture partnered with the Reinvestment Fund to invest $22.6 million to improve access to healthy foods in underserved communities.
We have an obligation to do all that we can do to empower ordinary, everyday American citizens to make choices that will sustain their lives. As a government, we cannot make the choice for them, but we can create a better set of options for them to make lifesaving decisions for themselves.
What good is balancing the budget if the American people are sick and dying from chronic disease?
What good is having a strong military or defense if the American people are withering away from diabetes and other morbidities that slowly eat away the health of the Nation?
A coherent and stringent immigration policy will mean absolutely nothing if the people who are already citizens of this country are dying from diseases that we can avoid.
Everything that America is and everything we hope it to be depends on the health and safety of our citizens. In the absence of being healthy, there is no American Dream.
I say to my colleagues, let us do everything that we can to empower people to have greater health, longer life, and what every American deserves; namely, three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and, yes, freedom and dignity for their souls.
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, these are the issues of the Congressional Black Caucus.
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