Paula Deen Pledges Money To American Diabetes Association

NEW YORK -- Celebrity chef Paula Deen on Wednesday pledged a portion of her earnings from a lucrative endorsement deal with a diabetes drugmaker to the nonprofit American Diabetes Association.

The queen of Southern cooking and author of numerous cookbooks disclosed Tuesday that she's had Type 2 diabetes for three years while promoting high-fat, high-sugar recipes as usual on her Food Network TV shows. She also said Tuesday that she'd signed on as the face of a new diabetes health initiative sponsored by Novo Nordisk, the company that makes Victoza, a noninsulin injectable medication she now takes.

In a segment of ABC's food chat show "The Chew" that aired Wednesday, Deen said she and her two grown sons, Bobby and Jamie, are working with the drug company's Diabetes in a New Light campaign "because we, like everybody else, have to work."

But, she added, the three are "in a position" to "set aside a certain percentage (of the Novo Nordisk money) and we're donating that back to the ADA."

Deen didn't specify how much money she planned to give to the ADA. Her spokeswoman, Elana Weiss, reached by phone late Wednesday, could not immediately say how much Deen would donate.

The American Diabetes Association on Wednesday said it was unaware of Deen's offer, according to ADA spokeswoman Lauren Gleason.

Neither Deen nor Novo Nordisk will disclose how much her endorsement deal is worth.

Gleason said that the Deen family will participate in select diabetes health expos the ADA hosts around the country. They are not taking money for that effort, Gleason said.

The ADA supports Deen's diabetes disclosure, said another spokeswoman, Geralyn Spollett, in a statement.

"People may benefit from seeing how others successfully manage Type 2 diabetes," Spollett said. "Paula Deen, through her work with Diabetes in a New Light, is likely to inspire many people living with Type 2 diabetes to take a more positive approach to their diabetes care."

Spollett added: "We commend her for speaking out on behalf of people with Type 2 diabetes and welcome her to the association's Stop Diabetes movement."

Deen added Novo Nordisk to other endorsement deals that include Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Smithfield hams.

Deen's sons are both paid Novo Nordisk endorsers as well. Bobby Deen is the new host of his own Food Network show, "Not My Mama's Cooking," which promotes recipes for a healthier lifestyle.

Bobby Deen told "The Chew" his family's participation in the Novo Nordisk campaign is "a good thing, a totally positive thing."

Paula Deen is contributing healthy recipes to the Diabetes in a New Light site, but said that on her shows, she plans no major changes to the high-calorie, high-fat gooey and fried comfort food that made her a star.

"I've always said, `Practice moderation, y'all.' I'll probably say that a little louder now," she told The Associated Press after revealing her diagnosis Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show.

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Comments

[leslyem]

03:34 PM on 01/24/2012

How lovely she toots her sugar and butter laden recipes and makes billions and NOW that she has developed diabetes OH not from her diet she says, she is going to DONATE a portion of the money she makes from the pharmaceutical company??? OF course she will since it will be a lovely tax write off for the millions she will make of of her wrong doing to promote her unhealthy diet and lifestyle. SERIOUSLY!!! No matter what she has made a lot of money promoting her "southern" diet and now she will make more trying to fix it when it could have been avoided altogether.... SO pathetic!!! People where applauding her on some show for saying she was donating "some" of the proceeds to the diabetes foundation when in fact it works for her financially again. INFURIATING!!

[HildaK]

10:59 AM on 01/21/2012

Like all Americans, Paula Deen is entitled to freedom of speech and her own sugar-and-fat-laden pursuit of happiness. That said, as a PAID spokesperson for a very serious medical condition, she also has an ethical responsibility to actually modify her dietary/health habits -- not just toss around the word "moderation" in a cavalier tone. Importantly, she needs to do this in ALL aspects of her public life. Problem here is that on one hand she she is offering up light meals and regurgitating her pharma sponsor's messages under their "Diabetes in a New Light" campaign, while on the other hand she has publicly stated that she has no intention of modifying the foods she promotes on her TV program. At the very least, she is a hypocrite guilty of poor taste and a total lack of integrity. As for her pharma company sponsor, Novo Nordisk... their choice of Paula Deen as a paid spokesperson for the management of type II diabetes is a total disgrace.

[pgs115]

01:56 AM on 01/20/2012

Dear Paula Deen

let me say this to all of you out their you do not need to depend on a diabetic medication if you can prevent it let me say this to you doctors do not want to cure people with diabetes it's means less visit to the doctor s office or the pharmacy, remember every time you take a medication you shorten your life
Unless the doctor tells you the truth why people develop diabetes I know the truth why your sugar goes up and you cannot control it without the medication. I am one of the best chef you want to know I cook everything and anything under the sun, however everything I do as to be fresh and natural stop buying frozen food, cans food, soda, chips, and all the bad food you see its junk food, improve your health without medication. However do not stop medication because I say so write to me and I will get your life back it's a promise I wish I could write more here, I can only write so many words here to give you a list of problem that people are sick unfortunately we live in a society that it’s far from the truth . If I was on TV cooking I would have a good % of the population in good health. Go to your tube type “Josie the next food networkstar “ click on the video

[pgs115]

01:42 PM on 01/21/2012

Dear Paula,
have me on your cooking show and I will prepare few Italian dishes that it will make everyone mouth watering and how they could change their life also. Go to you tube and check my video
"Josie the next food networkstar " then e-mail me at [e-mail] I will come to see you in the south region, I meet many great chefs Wolfgang Puck, Michael Vetri,
Darryl Harmon, Fabio Viviani we cook together on stage, now is your turn to meet me in person and then others and the list goes on and on I am the best unknown chef I always been private however now I think that I should come out from the wood work and show my talent to others. God bless us all

[pgs115]

10:16 PM on 01/21/2012

the issue here do you really know why sugar rice? I bet no one knows the truth
ask your doctor to tell you the truth I bet no doctor could give you the answer I know the answer and it does not come chip to finally of you are confusing out it's not your food that make your sugar rice unless you eat cake all day long every day, and by the way meat is bad for you I remember when I was young girl all my family was very skinny we only ate meat only two times a year money was tide the only think that we ate was all kinds of beans, greens, tomato's,and olive oil natural like I use now natural olive oil. Back to the sugar they are only few factors why sugar go up try medication against inflammation you see how fast sugar drops next time I give you more detail in the mean time asks your doctor why inflammatory medication works on dropping the sugar. thay's how much you know about sugar and diabete and also i need to say that bad food does not help

[ddanimal]

11:47 PM on 01/19/2012

The American Diabetes Association is a shill for the drug industry. Nobody should rely on any advice from the ADA. They dont want toprevent or cure diabetes. They want people chronically sick so they can make money.

the drug industry isnt dumb. They know they make their money from sick people, so the more sick people there are, the better for them.

[thrugreeneyez]

10:02 PM on 01/19/2012

Paula should stop promoting recipes that cause diabetes in the first place! How cynical to take money from a drug company now that she made so many people sick like her! Now she thinks she can donate some money to a diabetes charity and this somehow absolves her of all of the diabetes cases that she caused. She is a gluttonous addict. The only thing that could redeem Paula would be if Paula were to go vegan and reverse her disease, and show people how to get off their medication in a healthy way. Paula could be a positive role model by showing the world she is capable of change, too bad that she won't admit she has a problem.

[Dubagee]

06:34 PM on 01/19/2012

How to save Paula! Or wait, how she can save herself!

http://gigieatscelebrities.com/2012/01/19/saving-paula/

[Dubagee]

06:33 PM on 01/19/2012

Step in the right direction, I mean she sort of has to do this now that she has come out of the "food closet"!

http://gigieatscelebrities.com/2012/01/19/saving-paula/

[AnnainLA]

04:41 PM on 01/19/2012

drugs for type two diabetes do not add one day to your life. In fact they probably hasten you to the grave.Drug companies will use any ruse to get their pills approved even if the pills cause far more deaths than would occur in their absence.

[Kelly A Olsen]

04:07 PM on 01/19/2012

In a recent high-quality medical study, a vegan diet went head-to-head with the ADA diet -- and ADA just slowed down how much worse people got, while the vegan diet helped people get better: http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/how-to-treat-diabetes/. The ADA is exactly as commenter "Emm Snn"s says (below).

[JGscheduler]

10:00 AM on 01/20/2012

Thanks. *Excellent* video. I'm a big fan of evidence, so I appreciate all the science over at NutritionFacts.org. (full disclosure: I help Dr. Greger with the site.) Also, there's a new blog about Paula Deen you gotta read: http://nutritionfacts.org/blog/2012/01/18/paula-deen-diabetes-drug-spokesperson/

[Ranveig Elvebakk]

01:55 PM on 01/19/2012

Yes she is hawking a dubious diabetes drug, and the list of those is growing by the day Why? Because all diabetes drugs increase insulin, and high insulin is inflammatory to the body. Ask a researcher and s/he will confirm this. They have known for a long time, because the collective body of research makes this plain. I had this conversation with a cardiovascular researcher at UC California in San Francisco only recently. Why does he not say anything? Well, he explicitly pointed out to me " I am an academician, not a clinician. Why has your doctor not told you this? Well,---

[ddanimal]

11:49 PM on 01/19/2012

...because the drug industry makes more money when doctors lie to their patients!

[Darron Cardosa]

12:57 PM on 01/19/2012

Happy birthday, Paula Deen: http://thebitchywaiter.blogspot.com/2012/01/its-very-butter-birthday-yall.html

[wiscosundevil]

12:38 PM on 01/19/2012

I have an employee like you.....she knows everything. Despite watching my diet religiously, I had a hard time keeping my diabetes under control. Until I started on Actos. My diabetes is now under control. And by the way, I'm still alive.

[Emm Snn]

12:12 PM on 01/19/2012

The American Diabetes Association is almost as big a scam as Paula Deen recipes. The ADA takes in 25 million dollars in donations every year and supports diabetes drugs that science says are not need for Type 2 diabetes.

When Science showed that a specialized diabetes diet was reversing diabetes the ADA did not promote the story but instead took money from the drug makers even though the drugs were taking lives

The Diabetes drug Actos and Avandia was shown to cause deaths and ADA president still supported the drug makers and told people to take the drugs! Until it was banned last year

The drugmakers made 5 billion dollars in one year and admitted to congress they knew the drug did not work! This was reported on the news here http://spirithappy.org/wp/2011/09/25/diabetes-drug-maker-and-scam-artist-glaxo-fined-750-million-dollars-for-drugs-they-knew-did-not-work/

[ddanimal]

01:19 AM on 01/20/2012

The ADA works for the benefit of the drug companies, not people with diabetes.