Local dealerships help to find a cure for diabetes, one car at a time

Monroe — In honor of National Diabetes Month, local dealerships will contribute $1 for every Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicle sold in November to the Iacocca Foundation’s JoinLeeNow. The fundraising campaign is raising money for diabetes research. The program will run through the end of 2006. Rallye Autoplaza of Monroe and Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge of Warwick will participate in the campaign. “Diabetes strikes all demographics, from those living in our area, nationally and around the world,” said Gary Dilts, senior vice president of sales for the Chrysler group. “We are proud to do our part to help this great cause and find a cure for those suffering from this devastating disease.” The JoinLeeNow initiative is half way to reaching its goal of funding a clinical trial for a potential cure for type 1 diabetes, a treatment that has been found to successfully cure diabetes in mice. Diabetes is a disease that kills more than 200,000 people in the United States annually, and causes health complications including blindness, amputations, heart disease, nerve damage and kidney failure. “I promised my late wife that I would help to find a cure for type 1 diabetes in my lifetime. I feel like we are finally close,” said Lee Iacocca, chairman of the foundation. Launched in August of 2004, the initiative has raised six of the 11 million dollars it needs to fund a clinical trial at Massachusetts General Hospital, that will be conducted by doctors David Nathan and Denise Faustman. The first phase of the clinical trial program will test a potential cure for type 1 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the islet cells of the pancreas, which are the cells in the body that produce insulin. Nathan and Faustman are testing a treatment to stop the immune system’s destruction of the insulin-producing cells. Researchers have demonstrated in the lab that once the destruction of the insulin-producing cells is reversed, the body appears to be capable of regenerating these cells. The clinical trial is based on research by Faustman that has been almost exclusively sponsored by the Iacocca Foundation for the last six years. This research has significant implications not only to the future of diabetes treatment, but also to other autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and lupus. Lee A. Iacocca established the Iacocca Foundation in 1984 with the proceeds of his best-selling autobiography. His late wife Mary K. Iacocca died from complications of type 1 diabetes. Since its inception, the foundation has given more than $20 million to diabetes research. For more information, visit www.joinleenow.org or www.iacoccafoundation.org.