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About the Special Diabetes Program

The Special Statutory Funding Program for Type 1 Diabetes Research, or Special Diabetes Program, is a special appropriation for research on the prevention and cure of type 1 diabetes that the NIDDK administers on behalf of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with multiple NIH Institutes and Centers and the CDC, and with input from the Diabetes Mellitus Interagency Coordinating Committee.

The Special Diabetes Program has enabled the creation of unique, innovative, and collaborative research consortia and clinical trials networks focused on the prevention, treatment, and cure of type 1 diabetes. These consortia have made significant research progress and also generated numerous research resources for use by the broad scientific community. More information on research supported by the Program and the resulting scientific accomplishments are found in a Progress Report on the Special Type 1 Diabetes Program.

Legislative History of the Special Diabetes Program

Figure 1 shows that special funding for type 1 diabetes research was initially provided by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Public Law (P.L.) 105-33 (now Section 330B of the Public Health Service Act). This funding was later extended and augmented by Section 931 of the 2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 106-554), the Public Health Service Act Amendment for Diabetes (P.L.107-360), the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-173), the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-275), the Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-309), the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-240), the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-93), the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-10), and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-123). The figure below summarizes the program's funding levels since its inception in 1998. This funding program supplements regularly appropriated funds that the NIH receives for diabetes research.

Figure 1: Funding History for the Special Diabetes Program

Graph depicting funding for the Special Diabetes Program. Funding totaled 2.49 billion dollars over 20 years.
View description of Figure 1

View this data in an Excel spreadsheet (XLSX, 18.26 KB)