DATE: Friday, May 30, 1997                  TAG: 9705300001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion

SOURCE: By JAMES W. H. SELL 

                                            LENGTH:   64 lines

DIABETES INSTITUTES COULD BECOME AREA BOON

T hanks for your May 21 editorial ``Hope for diabetics.'' I am a fan of the Diabetes Institutes. I have been aware for several years of what the Institutes' researchers are doing. I am in awe of their brilliance. All that The Virginian-Pilot has reported about Dr. Leon-Paul Georges, Dr. Aaron I. Vinik and their extraordinary team is on target.

Almost beyond belief is that this research is underwritten by an annual budget of $1.6 million. In the world of medical research, that sum is modest. Major universities and corporations operate with budgets that make the Diabetes Institutes' budget look like pocket change.

Yet the Diabetes Institutes, on West Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk, is in the lead in the assault against diabetes. Imagine what would happen if the cure for diabetes is effected here in our back yard.

First, we would be seen as the donors of an immense medical gift. Ending diabetes will relieve millions constant medication, often followed by limb amputation, blindness and premature death.

Second, as The Virginian-Pilot has noted, Dr. Vinik could well be awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine. He that he must already be seen as a possible recipient. His prior research identifies him as one of the great seminal thinkers in medical research today. To nail down the cure would place him in the same Pantheon with Louis Pasteur, Walter Reed and Jonas Salk.

Suppose this region became the Mecca for diabetics seeking the best care available - a global healing center. I cannot fully grasp the meaning of that, and perhaps no one can. But I imagine that Hampton Roads would then become one of the world's greatest medical communities.

People in great number would journey here in quest of healing. More and more of the finest health professionals would take up residence here in order to be on the cutting edge of our research. The most sophisticated medical research-and-development firms would want to be here that they could benefit from the creativity generated. In my reverie, I hear the Greater Norfolk area identified as ``that Navy town, that Norfolk Southern town and that Diabetes Institutes town.''

These dreams will slip into the sunset if some other medical center beats the Diabetes Institutes to the punch. The race is in high gear right now. Several institutions are hot on the Institutes' heels because the rewards are staggering and the prestige is vaulted. The community in which the cure for diabetes is found will prosper for decades to come.

We should be proud that our civic leaders are trying to strengthen regionalism and develop a shared vision of the future. The joint ventures under way convince me that the day is not far away when everyone in America will know where Hampton Roads is.

Venturing into the world to attract new business is at the very heart of civic leaders' mission. But why travel far and wide to attract business while overlooking a treasure in our midst? Why invest in dreams from afar when we could be investing in the brilliance of our own people? Why not incubate our own ground-floor industry that has the capacity to improve our overall economy dramatically? Our community leaders should be working with the Diabetes Institutes to assure us that the Institutes' resources are not bargained away to big drug companies and more powerful interests.

Our community should consider what can be done to build the Diabetes Institutes into the dominating force in the healing of diabetes and a powerful engine for healing and for the betterment of Hampton Roads. MEMO: The Rev. James W. H. Sell is rector of Christ and Saint Luke's

Episcopal Church in Norfolk.

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