INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 25, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- For Sherry Martin, M.D., starting her new job at Eli
Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) in August
2005 was stressful enough. She was in the process of leaving
her 15-year clinical practice and moving her family from
Mississippi to Indianapolis – home of Lilly's headquarters –
when she heard the first reports of a Category 5 hurricane heading
toward the Gulf states.
"When I heard that it might make landfall, I remembered what it
was like for me as a child when Hurricane Camille hit and the power
was out for days," said Dr. Martin, now vice president of Medical
Development, Lilly Diabetes. "When Katrina hit, I knew – as an
endocrinologist – that those with diabetes and those who rely on
insulin would be immensely affected if they hadn't prepared."
That need for preparation is what propelled Martin to join her
new Lilly colleagues and the American Association of Clinical
Endocrinologists (AACE) in launching the "My Diabetes Emergency
Plan." The plan, which became available six months after Katrina,
outlines the steps necessary for those with diabetes – and their
caregivers – to properly prepare for emergencies from natural
disasters to unexpected circumstances.
"If there's one thing I hope people learned from Katrina, it's
that being prepared can save your life," said Martin. "When you've
been displaced from your home, forced to flee your hometown and not
sure of how loved ones fared, the last thing you can remember is
your doctor's phone number or the names and doses of all your
medicines. Having this information ahead of time not only helps
you, it helps the doctors who are trying to treat you."
One of those doctors was Jeff
Jackson, M.D., FACE, CDE, now a medical fellow for Lilly
Diabetes. In August 2005, he was a
practicing endocrinologist in Texas who volunteered to help hurricane
evacuees who were bused to central Texas for shelter and medical treatment at a
local community center.
"We used photos of different types of medicines to identify
unrecognized pills and showed them to patients in the hope that
they would recognize them and be able to tell us what they were
taking," said Dr. Jackson. "They were traumatized, exhausted and
confused. We did the best we could. The enormity of what happened
never left us, and we were able to apply those lessons to the My
Diabetes Emergency Plan checklist."
Since its inception, more than 12 million copies of the
checklist have been distributed to physicians, emergency responders
and city planners. In addition, the checklist now has an
accompanying how-to video and online tools and is available in
Spanish.
"The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists exists to
provide endocrinologists with valuable resources to better serve
patients," said Lawrence Blonde, M.D., FACP, FACE, Director,
Ochsner Diabetes Clinical Research Unit, Ochsner Medical Center,
New Orleans, and member of AACE.
"We are pleased that we've been able to provide the My Diabetes
Emergency Plan checklist to those who need it most and during the
most opportune time – before an emergency happens."
Lessons learned
Preparing in advance is what helped Alysia Evans and her family in August 2005 when they left their home in
Mandeville, La., ahead of
Katrina's landfall.
Evans' daughter, a toddler at the time and newly diagnosed with
type 1 diabetes, was taking a diluted form of insulin that could
only be filled at a compounding pharmacy. When the family fled to a
Shreveport, La., hotel to ride out
the storm, Evans was already prepared.
"Like most mothers, I carried a diaper bag, but for this storm,
we had no idea how long we'd be gone so I was overly cautious,"
said Evans, now development manager for the Juvenile Diabetes
Research Foundation's (JDRF) New
Orleans office. "She was so little and she couldn't tell us
when she didn't feel well so we had to be prepared. When we left, I
carried orange juice, carbohydrate supplies, medical history,
syringes . . . everything I could think of related to
diabetes."
Even with the preparation, however, Evans ran into a snag. The
compounding pharmacy on the Gulf Coast was without power. Residents
were not allowed back into the region. Days at the hotel in
Shreveport stretched into weeks,
and she needed to refill her daughter's prescription.
"With diluted insulin, you can't just go into your local
drugstore and pick it up," said Evans. "It was only filled at a
compounding pharmacy, and we didn't know where to find one in
Shreveport. It was very scary. I
was an absolute mess. Thankfully it worked out and we found one in
time."
More than 1 million people in the Gulf region were displaced by
Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. It's estimated that about 9
percent of New Orleans residents
affected by Katrina had diabetes, with nearly 25 percent on insulin
therapy.1 Katrina, which made landfall on Aug. 28, 2005, was the most destructive storm in
U.S. history, killing more than 1,800 people and causing roughly
$108 billion in property
damage.2
"It sounds awful to say, but you have to prepare for the worst,"
said Evans. "Life is so short and you never know what is going to
happen. Katrina was a huge wake-up call for our generation.
Everyone needs to be prepared so they can protect themselves and
their families."
For more information, visit www.mydiabetesemergencyplan.com.
About Diabetes
Approximately 29 million Americans3 and an estimated
387 million people worldwide have type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Type
2 diabetes is the most common type, accounting for an estimated 90
to 95 percent of all diabetes cases. Diabetes is a
chronic disease that occurs when the body either does not properly
produce, or use, the hormone insulin. 3
About Lilly Diabetes
Lilly has been a global leader in diabetes care since 1923, when
we introduced the world's first commercial insulin. Today we work
to meet the diverse needs of people with diabetes through research
and collaboration, a broad and growing product portfolio and a
continued commitment to providing real solutions—from medicines to
support programs and more—to make lives better. For more
information, visit www.lillydiabetes.com.
About Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with
discovery to make life better for people around the world. We were
founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating
high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain
true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly
employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to
those who need them, improve the understanding and management of
disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and
volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at
www.lilly.com and newsroom.lilly.com/social-channels.
About the American Association of Clinical
Endocrinologists
The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE)
represents more than 6,000 endocrinologists in the United States and abroad. AACE is the
largest association of clinical endocrinologists in the world. The
majority of AACE members are certified in Diabetes, Endocrinology
and Metabolism and concentrate on the treatment of patients with
endocrine and metabolic disorders including diabetes, thyroid
disorders, osteoporosis, growth hormone deficiency, cholesterol
disorders, hypertension and obesity. Visit our website at
www.aace.com.
P-LLY
PP-LD-US-0085 08/2015 ©Lilly USA, LLC 2015. All rights reserved. All
trademarks are property of the respective owners.
1 Ford ES, Mokdad AH, Link MW, Garvin WS,
McGuire LC, Jiles RB, Balluz LS. Chronic disease in health
emergencies: in the eye of the hurricane. Prev Chronic Dis. 2006
Apr; v.3(2). Available at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1563956/
2 National Weather Service. The Deadliest, Costliest,
and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones from 1851 to 2010.
Available at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/nws-nhc-6.pdf. Accessed on
August 20, 2015.
3 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2014. Available
at:
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/statsreport14/national-diabetes-report-web.pdf.
October 2014. Accessed on
August 20, 2015.
Refer
to:
|
Candace Johnson,
johnson_candace_a@lilly.com, (317) 755-9143
|
|
Glenn Sebold,
gsebold@aace.com, (904) 703-2020
|
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