To lead a healthy, long life with diabetes, one must focus on the mind, body and spirit. Doing so makes outcomes far better – glucose outcomes, productivity outcomes, heart health, kidney health and cognitive health. When talking about diabetes, we simply cannot separate the body from the mind and the soul.
Kelly L. Close Co-Founder and Chair of the Board, The diaTribe Foundation
I started my journey in 2016 to find a solution for Louisiana, which is one of the three lowest- income states in the country – to make sure that everyone living with hepatitis C in our state could have access to this remarkable new therapy that was able to cure hepatitis C. I think what I learned is that if you work with industry, if you reset the problem not as an us-versus-them issue – but a mindset of: here’s the challenge, help us solve it, we need to do better for our people. Then, you can gain traction. You can overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers and you can succeed.
Rebekah E. Gee, MD CEO, LSU Health Care Services; Former Secretary, Louisiana Department of Health
Pope Francis’s words echo those of my dad, Bobby Kennedy. He said that for too long we have surrendered community excellence and community values to the mere accumulation of material things. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or for the joy of their play. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America, except why we are proud to be Americans. Carl June, MD The Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy and Director, Center for Cellular Immunotherapies, Perelman School of Medicine; Director, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, University of Pennsylvania CAR T-cell therapy is a curative therapy. It’s bespoke, meaning it’s made on a one-by-one basis using a person’s own cells. Now, we are working with off-the-shelf cells. This is where one can make cells, not from your own body, but from other sources, such as other healthy blood donors. We now have gene engineering technologies to convert healthy people into being universal T-cell donors so that we can make CAR T-cells in big batches. This will cut the price down by orders of magnitude. Marilyn Glassberg, MD Division Chief of Pulmonary Medicine, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine; Senior Director of Clinical Research for Strategy and Growth for the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Arizona College of Medicine There will be many people who survive COVID-19, but who do so with longer term pulmonary issues. This is why we established long-term clinics for patients who have long hauler COVID-19 lung disease. We hope that with novel interventions and new therapeutics, such as exosomes and cell therapies, we can treat their pulmonary disease and help them.
Kerry Kennedy President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
There is a disproportionate impact of high drug prices on the uninsured. But high drug prices affect everyone – even those with insurance. And it’s not just the financial toxicity, high drug prices can have an impact on mortality as well.
Timothy A. Lash President, West Health Policy Center
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