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Lara Markenson
Robert Marston And Associates, Inc.
485 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
212/371-2200
lmarkenson@marstonpr.comFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lifescan Presents Services To Help Hispanics Deal With Diabetes Epidemic
-- José Feliciano to Help Bring Wider Recognition of the Problem --
-- Spanish Version of Award-Winning Diabetes Web Site Launched:
OneTouchEnEspanol.com Addresses Needs of 2 Million Hispanic Americans with Diabetes --Milpitas, Calif., September 29, 2003 - LifeScan, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, has introduced an education and awareness program in the U.S. specifically designed to help Hispanics with diabetes, a disease twice as likely to affect Hispanics as non-Hispanic whites. Recognizing the challenges this disease poses for the Hispanic community, the company is partnering with six-time Grammy-award-winning musical artist José Feliciano, who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1994. Together, they hope to educate people with diabetes about the disease and the role that testing and controlling blood glucose plays in helping people avoid serious complications. LifeScan is a leading maker of blood glucose monitoring systems for people with diabetes. The new program from LifeScan consists of several offerings, including diabetes education and product support literature in Spanish; the company's 24-hour, toll-free Spanish-language customer service line; and the introduction of www.OneTouchEnEspanol.com, a Web site featuring 125 pages of company, product, and-especially-diabetes self-care information.
In addition, LifeScan is featuring Feliciano in a new national advertising and awareness campaign, through which he hopes to reach other Hispanics with diabetes and help them feel more comfortable in discussing the disease and steps to control it. As a professional musician, he is an enthusiastic user of the company's OneTouch® Ultra® Blood Glucose Monitoring System, because it enables him to test his blood glucose before meals on the arm, giving his guitar-playing fingertips a rest from blood glucose testing.
"Having learned how important it is to manage my diabetes, I've become very careful about controlling my blood sugar," said Feliciano. "I had always mistakenly associated diabetes with eating too much sugar and candy, so I never expected to get the disease. But now that I know I have it, I definitely want to control it so I can avoid complications in the future. If I can help others do the same by spreading the word about controlling their diabetes, that will be even better."
Recently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that if the epidemic of diabetes continues at its current rate, about half of all Hispanic babies born in the U.S. in 2000 will be diagnosed with this disease sometime in their lives. Even now, one in four Hispanics between the ages of 45 and 74 have diabetes, and the rate of complications is severe. For example, 32 to 40 percent of Mexican Americans with diabetes suffer from diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to blindness. They're also 4.5 to 6.6 times more likely to suffer kidney failure than those in the general U.S. population with diabetes. Because of this serious situation and the fact that diabetes is a chronic condition, LifeScan is offering its list of services for Hispanics with a particular emphasis on providing useful information to help people manage their disease. The services include:
- www.OneTouchEnEspanol.com: Nearly three of every four pages on this new site provides health information for people with diabetes. These 90 pages cover subjects from the definitions of diabetes, how to avoid complications, and what is hypoglycemia, to information on diet and nutrition, medication, monitoring, and why every diabetes patient should know his/her A1c level. The site also provides diabetes and health news via the weekly Reuters Health Newsfeed in Spanish as well as information on the complete line of OneTouch® Blood Glucose Monitoring Products. "Thanks to this Web site, the Spanish-speaking community will have a current, reliable and readily-accessible source of information that can be used to learn more about diabetes," said América Bracho, MPH, Certified Diabetes Educator and CEO of Latino Health Access (LHA), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of Hispanics and recipient of national awards for its diabetes self-management programs. LHA is based in Santa Ana, Calif.
- SERVICO, a Toll-free Customer Service Line in Spanish. 1 800 381-SCAN (7226) is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People who have questions about their blood glucose meters can call and talk directly to a Spanish-speaking customer service representative.
- Free TestSmartTM Guidebook. Often times, diabetes patients who test their blood glucose levels don't know how to use the test results or don't fully realize how testing and controlling their blood glucose levels can help them feel better now and avoid diabetes complications in the future. This guide explains-in Spanish-when and why patients should test their blood glucose levels and how those levels are impacted by meals, exercise, medications and mood swings. It can be downloaded from www.OneTouchEnEspanol.com.
- Product Instructional Materials in Spanish. Product procedure guides and instructional videos are available in Spanish free of charge to requesting customers who call the SERVICO line for assistance with their OneTouch® Brand Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems. Topics covered include how to code your blood glucose meter, how to test your blood glucose using the fingertip or the arm, and how to access your meter's memory function to review previous test results.
LifeScan, a leading maker of blood glucose monitoring products, is dedicated to creating a world without limits for people with diabetes. More diabetes specialists and diabetes educators recommend the company's OneTouch® Systems than any other brand.
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Last Updated: Sunday October 05, 2003 16:31:28
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