Since hearing about Dr Faustman over here in Ireland, we are so hopeful that she will finally find a cure to my son's type 1 diabetes. She is a true medical pioneer, striding forward towards the goal that so many of us want to see achieved. We pray for her daily. God bless her and her work.

I am outraged that JDF and ADA are not supporting Dr. Faustman's research. It must be true--diabetes is too lucrative a dissease to cure.

I've done 2 things. First, I've stopped supporting the ADA and now give all my diabetes contributions to the Iacoca Foundation.

Second, I drove to Boston and gave a blood donation to Dr. Faustman so that I'll be considered to participate in the phase 2 trials.

I'm not interested in organizations that want to service type 1 diabetes and profit from it. I'm interested in researchers who are working to cure it.

Perhaps the $50,000.00 my teenage daughter has raised through walks over the past 7 years for the JDRF to help find a cure for her Type 1 diabetes would have been better spent to support Dr. Faustman's research. Shame on you, JDRF! Maybe you DO have your hand in the till when it comes to the billions of dollars that drug companies make each year to make it "easier" for our kids to live with Type 1 diabetes rather than funding research for a cure. After all, how manay companies will go out of business if Type 1 is cured?? Too many to count.If Dr. Faustman's trials prove successful, then Type 1 diabetes will be cured for merely pennies. Perhaps our daughter would be better off staying home for this year's walk but still hold her fundraising on behalf of Dr. Faustman's research. Good luck, Dr. Faustman! I hope you prove JDRF wrong!

I don't know why JDRF is concerned about Dr. Faustman's research, but I do know how in incredible JDRF has been in funding small and large grants for research for a cure. I can't turn my back on a parent-founded group that has spent more than $1 billion on research for a cure since 1970. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water...

I've given to the Iacocca Foundation and am so happy to hear that Faustman has progressed to human clinical trials. My hat's off to Lee Iacocca, now in his 80s, for all he has done to further her research. Please give to this worthy cause! We won't find a cure for diabetes through conventional drug research because there is so much money to be made from diabetes; the only way to eradicate this disease is to support (monetarily) independent studies such as this. Thanks, Ms. Faustman!

This is the type of infighting that further saps the hope that T1 diabetes will one day be cured. It's hard NOT to believe that researchers and big pharma would rather continue status quo, eagerly accepting money via donations or through the required purchase of their products (insulin, strips, supplies).

Why do they oppose this research? If there was no diabetes therewould be no need for JDRF and ADA.

THIS IS VERY ENCOURAGING NEWS FOR TYPE 1 DIABETICS, I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS NEWS, AND ENCOURAGE DR.FAUSTMAN TO CONTINUE AND THANK HER FOR HER RESEARCH.

GILBERT, AZ

I wrote that original expose for DiabetesHealth on the JDRF/HMS flap. It's important for the diabetic oommunity to understand something truly innovative about Dr. Faustman's approach -- her treatment does not rely on new, untested drugs or heroic interventions. That means there is no "big money" interest in seeing her succeed. The other cure (or "cure") research underway typically relies on costly, Big Science, profit-driven solutions. Stem cell farms, catheterization procedures, clean pigs and the like.

So if you're relying on the pharmaceutical industry to pony up and pay for Faustman's research, forget it. She is a huge threat to their multi-billion dollar alternatives. If we want her to succeed, we need to provide direct, significant support. (It's worth noting that the JDRF has established a policy of securing royalty payments for any commercial application of the research it supports.)

Oh, and BTW, because the generic drug she is using has an 80+ year safety record, it won't need to go through a decade of clinical trials.

There are other areas of research that definitely need to be pursued and pharma will definitely be pursuing them. But this one is our responsibility. Nobody else's.

Hey M. Jensen:

You rock! Thank you for exposing this absolutely outrageous scandal, and thank you to the NY Times for standing its ground and refusing to publish the JDRF's childish response letter to their original article about Faustman's research. Finally, thank you, thank you, thank you to both Drs. Faustman & Nathan, and to the Iococca Foundation for their efforts to halt this torturous disease that has held me captive for 30 years and counting. I long for the day when I can scrap my meter and disconnect myself from my Star Trek "Borg-like" pump for the last time. Hey everyone--Give generously to the Ioccoca Foundation, and boycott the JRDF & ADA until they reverse their ridiculous and greedy policies!!!

The JDRF doesn't seem to have a real interest in innovative, potentially inexpensive solutions. They've been busily ignoring and not funding research on the effects of C-Peptide on reversing and preventing complications for years. Despite the continued good results from any number of small studies over the years, their response to two letters I've sent over the last couple of years has been that they are not funding it because the research so far has not demonstrated the benefit clearly enough. Hello? Isn't that what they are there for? The lack of clear proof of benefits (or lack thereof) is due to lack of large scale human trials. Given that C-peptide is a substance naturally produced by the body as a part of producing insulin and there are well known inexpensive means of synthesizing it, a large scale trial would cost peanuts compared to most of the things they are working on. I, and a lot of other diabetics I hear from on the web, want them to fund research and get real answers. I'm grateful that they're working for that magic bullet cure but they are putting too much emphasis on things like the Edmonton protocal which are years away from helping large numbers of Type 1's.

We all need to keep Dr. Faustman in our daily prayers..... GOD, not money... can give us a cure thru prayers....

I think there is a contest going on at the JDRF to come up with a new disease not to cure.

I also wonder if the trials will include LADA

I truly believe that with the enormous profits being made on medications, meters, strips, etc., that their are definitely selfish interests in not curing this disease. Being a t1 diabetic for 42 years and having a litany of complications, I would think the insurance companies would be all for a cure?

Dr. Faustman is doing good and important work. But it is NOT true others are not working on a cure. There is the long standing DPPT trials and many other basic scientists working on cures. Stem cell transplants are rapidly showing progress and basic scientists are working on many other approaches.
It is a shame people may be attacking Dr. Faustman, but we can not forget all of the other people out there doing the same.

I agree, let's not forget some of the others like Living Cell Technologies as they are having some good sucess with their Pig transplant's as one person was off insulin altogether for like 5 months. Also smartcells smart insulin would be revolutionary and now Ingap Peptide is going into human clinical trials in 2009. It would be beyond frustrating if none of these therapies make it to us.

After much study, I have to conclude that most diabetes research deals with improving monitoring devices or prevention of diabetes. When I inquired what research JDRF was sponsoring with our local walk's proceeds, I was told that for the next five years, most proceeds would go toward research dealing with how to prevent diabetes. This makes me incredibly sad. Every year our children have diabetes, brings them closer to possible complications from heart disease, kidney failure, amputations, etc. Please support Dr. Faustman's research both with prayers and with contributions. How ironic is it that one of the few "cure" researchers has to go begging for money and rely on an 80+ year old man( whose beloved wife died from type 1 diabetes complications, despite great health care and a conscientious preventative regimen) to fund her studies (which have reversed diabetes in mice.) While all these good people make sacrifices to give to JDRF who is largely funding research that has nothing to do with a cure. Please ask for a list of the studies being supported by JDRF, the titles will be very alarming to those of us that are hoping for a cure. With our governments cut in the NIH funding, we look to JDRF to lead us in funding for research for a cure.

Re: "GOD, not money"

Since when does God diss money? Try this on for size: Give your prayers to your church and take your full tithe into the House of Faustman! (I bet your minister would have something to say about that approach.... ;0)

Re: "insurance companies would be all for a cure."
You would think so. Until you realize that the time horizon for payback goes way beyond the 3 year average employment tenure. We reward insurance companies for passing along costs year-by-year, not by minimizing costs for a lifetime of care. This, by the way, is the fundamental reason we spend twice as much per capita as all the other industrialized nations that cover everyone (and get worse outcomes, shorter lifetimes and medical bankruptcy). Markets based on cost-shifting are neither "free" nor efficient.

Re: Edmonton Protocol
I'm pretty sure I read in this magazine a few months back that the developer of that protocol does not see it as any model for clinical treatment. It's just a research study that points to possibilities. (And, arguably, a lot of impractical and costly approaches.)

Re: "Pig transplants"
Actually, that's a great example of what our "Free Market" approach continues to yield. Hugely expensive treatments with lots of money to the winner of the research prize. My own research revealed an interesting connection between Dr. Faustman's critics and that lovely Moreauvian term, "xenotransplantation." If the pigs come in first, guess who gets rich?

On the other hand, if becoming part pig would cure my disease and I could figure out a way to pay for it, would I? You bet. But what about the millions of others -- in the US and beyond -- who would continue to suffer while the docs collected awards and royalties, not to mention fees for individual procedures?

Our profit-driven research industry is based on creating such technologies. Patent-protected pharmaceuticals. Supplies and disposables. Cures for the rich and well-insured.

Government research, it would seem, would be geared toward minimizing lifetime costs -- right? Medicare inherits us all (at least the survivors). But we gave up that hope when we fell for the demogogues who won elections by critizing "frivilous" research programs. A few pennies to look into an unexplored field and suddenly a leading scientist is given a Golden Fleece award for wasting taxpayer dollars. And then the same legislators sweep in and introduce funding "reforms" which makes sure that taxpayer money is only invested in "safe" research projects.

And, our brilliant legislators have decided that the way to make our federal dollars go further is to incent such researchers to develop profit-driven technologies. In other words, why pay for it once when you can pay for it again and again?

We fell for it, and from the looks of different races around the country this election cycle, we're going to fall for it again.

Like I said, this time it's up to us. We need to look for foundations like Iacocca, or even specific projects like Drs. Faustman's and Nathan's. We need to lay our chips on the side of the table where the players are rolling for us.