Diabetes Legal Advocacy Comes of Age

This article updates the legal advoca-cy efforts of the American Diabetes Association since 1999. These efforts include a variety of strategies and tac-tics to improve the lives of people dis-criminated against on the basis of their diabetes. The Association’s efforts are particularly focused on employment and school issues, but they also include access to medical care for people in correctional institu-tions and at places of public accom-modation. Using an overall strategy of educating, negotiating, litigating, and legislating, the Association has achieved significant results with far-reaching effects. This innovative effort is unique among voluntary health organizations. The Association has institutionalized its legal advoca-cy efforts with its strategic plan, bud-get allocations, volunteer networks, and staff support. The legal advocacy efforts of the Association bring signif-icant and meaningful results to peo-ple with diabetes. During the winter of 1999, an original article in Diabetes Spectrum outlined the history of legal advocacy for the American Diabetes Association from 1990 through 1999.1 “Legal advoca-cy ” refers to the Association’s efforts to end discrimination against people with diabetes. This article takes legal advocacy from 1999 to the present, updating the Association’s achieve-ments, efforts, and strategies. Since 1999, the Association’s legal advocacy efforts have been expanded and strengthened and now are signifi-cantly more effective in different venues on a wide variety of issues. The theme of the previous article was the dawn and development of legal advocacy for diabetes. The theme of this article is the growth and imple-mentation of legal advocacy to improve the lives of all those affected by diabetes. The implementation of legal advo-cacy for diabetes focuses on an overall process that is incremental, inex-orable, yet flexible. The Association pursues a four-step process to educate about diabetes, to negotiate resolu-tions of problems, to litigate if neces-sary to protect rights and remedies, and, where current legal protections are not adequate, to legislate new laws, rules, and standards for people with diabetes. This process produces lasting, significant results