How Anti-DEI policies cripple Diabetes care for EVERYONE

by IDS Director of Patient Care and Education, Alicia Downs

How dumping DEI programs spells disaster for people with T1D

Are we really not even through the first quarter of 2025?! Not even 90 days in and we are seeing a dismantling of government programs in ways and at rates that have never been seen in the USA.

Predictably the first area of focus and destruction were Federally backed Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Essentially Federally funded programs are being told that they can not take actions to ensure diversity equity and inclusion in their practices.

This does not stop at hiring. It also includes areas such as:

For example, under Equity an area with less affluent residents might be entitled to a larger portion of Federal funding for diabetes care and education funding, because the residents in that area are not going to be as free to allocate their personal finances to their diabetes care as more affluent citizens.

Now, with the elimination of DEI practices, those funds would have to be allocated Equally, not Equitably. This means that those with additional expendable income will now have the same Federal funding assistance as those with far more limited expendable income.

Research programs will no longer be permitted to recruit for studies using guidelines such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity or other qualifiers.

Studies are now essentially “Come one come all” spaces. And this leads to data that no longer represents the population that it is studying. Data will become innately flawed, weighted too heavily based on demographics that are not being controlled because to do so would be a DEI measure.

You see until the 1990s all our medical science data was collected based on either Middle-aged white males who were paid for their participation, or very limited data from persons of color that was stolen without their, or anyone else’s knowledge. This meant that the practice of medication posed far higher risks to women, the aged, the very young, people of color, and other populations not represented.

To be a woman taking a medication literally carried a higher risk of overdose than a man because there was not data on whether dosage adjustments were needed. To be a person of color going under sedation posed a higher risk because there was no data on whether devices used to monitor vitals would work differently due to the coloring of your skin. If you were a person of non-European lineage with an uncommon disease presentation doctors simply were not educated on disease rates or genetic predispositions of other ethnicities and so your care was not tailored to your needs in any way, you likely went undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed.

We are now looking to send our medical world back to these times. Researchers who seek to balance study groups to match population demographics can lose funding because they are using DEI models. Medical schools that teach Culturally cognizant care can lose Federal funding because they are “pushing DEI initiatives” In short, the Research, development and educational arms of our medical world will come to a grinding halt!

Some of us may not have noticed, but many of the greatest minds of American history have not been born here. Particularly in Medicine and Biotech, investing in bringing up great minds from meager beginnings, and offering an inclusive, empowering environment of open learning and innovation that welcomes those who are not supported in their home nations has allowed the USA to flourish as the home of groundbreaking diabetes research.

We are losing these great minds to other nations as the US becomes a less hospitable place to live, work and learn. And even more immediately, our healthcare systems are staffed in overwhelming proportions by persons on visas, work programs, educational programs, scholarship programs etc who have taken advantage of, or who are currently part of DEI programs.

Wiping out these programs will mean that already extreme staffing shortages are going to get significantly worse as international nurses are not able to qualify for positions they once would have gotten. Students cannot get scholarships for training programs to enter the workforce that they once would have gotten. Funding is not available for the hiring of staff that was once available through programs designed to strengthen communities and populations due to anti-DEI policies.

Even more frightening is that DEI policies were never put in place to ensure that workplaces were made more inclusive and diverse. They were put in place to ensure that the most qualified individuals were not denied positions simply due to their diversity while a less qualified majority representing individuals were hired in their place. Without these policies in place to hold organizations accountable the quality of employees in our medical facilities is likely to drop as less qualified employees are hired out of conscious or unconscious biases.

Simply put, those who are not mindful of our history are doomed to repeat it.

We would be foolish to think that not looking like a person who benefits from a DEI program means that we can do without them. Our nation’s prosperity is built on these programs. Our rapid state of diabetes care advancement is built on them. Without them, it all comes tumbling down. And lest we forget, Type 1 diabetes is a Rare disease. That makes us a serious minority. A minority that has many protected rights. A minority that less than 80 short years ago many people would have argued made us a waste of resources and unworthy of being kept alive as a drain on our society. Equality would see many people die. Equity would see us all thrive.

https://integrateddiabetes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/diversity.png

-United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Translation-

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Juden einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.

–Pastor Martin Neimoller-1946

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

–Pastor Martin Neimoller-1946

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