Novo Nordisk and Power to the People

The Changing Diabetes Bus rolled onto the scene in June, for the US segment of its tour around the world. After a trek through Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Canada, the bus and team looked as good as new. In Chicago, on the same sunny weekend as the big ADA meeting, the bus was parked at Navy Pier with the Changing Diabetes Village built around it. CBS and ABC cameras rolled as the Chief Medical Officer of Novo Nordisk Alan Moses introduced the event, along with Chicago’s public health commissioner Terry Mason, and, drawing the most attention, Bears’ head coach Lovie Smith. All were incredibly inspiring. Smith talked about the devastation type 2 diabetes has caused for his family and how critical teamwork is to conquer the disease. The best advice: take your parents out for a walk sometime. The event was excellent, with free fruit and ice cream, an art station for kids, and an impressive health screening station to find out your blood pressure, glucose level, and cholesterol levels. We saw another Novo Nordisk exhibit at ADA as well, a traveling photography exhibit produced by Rick Smolan, a former Time, Life, and National Geographic photographer; the show is called Meet the Face of Change. A lively opening the same weekend at ADA revealed super sized photographs of real people with type 2 diabetes who are making changes to live better with their diabetes.