Florida to Become First State to Screen All Newborns for Diabetes

Florida will become the first state to offer juvenile diabetes screening to all newborns under a program announced on Jan. 3, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The program will be overseen by the University of Florida College of Medicine and funded in part by a $10 million grant from the American Diabetes Association (Suriano, Orlando Sentinel, 1/4). The Florida Times-Union reports that officials from the university plan to establish an endowment and "parlay" the ADA grant into matching funds from the state and "other sources" (Filaroski, Florida Times-Union, 1/4). The University of Florida will begin testing infants by taking a blood sample and analyzing its DNA for genes associated with juvenile, or Type 1, diabetes. This form of the disease affects about 800,000 Americans, most of whom are under age 40. Researchers hope to test screen about 4,000 to 5,000 infants per year initially and "gradually" increase that number as more funding becomes available. The voluntary program will offer "lifetime monitoring" to high-risk infants, who may have to return to the hospital for blood tests every three to six months. Dr. Ken Burns, the University of Florida's vice president for health affairs, said, "Early detection for this debilitating disease is becoming more and more critical," as Type 1 diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke and amputations. Eventually, ADA officials hope to offer testing to all 200,000 babies born in the state each year as they look to "discover what causes the genetic possibility for diabetes to become a lifelong reality for some people." They also believe that the program could motivate other states to consider diabetes screening for infants. Davida Kruger, chair of the ADA Research Foundation, said, "Once it gets started here and we see how it goes, we can make a case for other places as well" (Orlando Sentinel, 1/4).