NFB RESOLUTION CALLS FOR BETTER TEST STRIPS

Every year, at its annual convention, the National Federation of the Blind considers resolutions of interest to blind people. Some of these resolutions deal with diabetes.

Last year, the Federation asked blood glucose monitor manufacturers and designers to make their products "speech ready." This year, Resolution 98-12 asks the same firms to upgrade their blood glucose monitor test strips to more tactile/adaptive types (many of which are already available).

With appropriate adaptive equipment, such as talking blood glucose monitors, blind diabetics, those losing vision, and those facing "fluctuating vision" are just as capable of independent self-management (and thus full participation in the mainstream) as are the sighted. It remains for the manufacturers to provide us with the best possible adaptive equipment.

We are circulating the following to monitor developers and manufacturers.

National Federation of the Blind
RESOLUTION 98-12

WHEREAS, The Centers for Disease Control estimates 15.7 million Americans have diabetes, and calls diabetes "the leading cause of new cases of blindness in adults 20 to 74 years old," making this an issue of great interest to the National Federation of the Blind; and

WHEREAS, all diabetics, blind or sighted, need to monitor blood glucose levels accurately and frequently, in order to maintain health and reduce risk of complications, and

WHEREAS, many of the common and popular types of home blood glucose monitors available today require a hanging drop of blood, for correct measurement, a complex, vision-intensive move difficult for many sighted diabetics and an unnecessary burden to blind diabetics or those losing vision; and

WHEREAS, other, simpler means of depositing blood onto the test strip already exist, but most have yet to be integrated into glucose meters with speech output for the blind; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled this tenth day of July, 1998, in the City of Dallas, Texas, that this organization call upon all blood glucose monitor developers and manufacturers to shift from hanging drop of blood systems to simpler and more accessible test strip types.