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Larry Krotz -- Book Launch

Wednesday May 02 2018 7:00 pm, Winnipeg, Grant Park in the Atrium
NOTE: This event has already taken place. Please visit this page to see our upcoming events.

Launch of Diagnosing the Legacy: The Discovery, Research, and Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes in Indigenous Youth (University of Manitoba Press) featuring special guest Dr. Heather Dean. Co-presented by The Winnipeg International Writers Festival as part of our collaborative Spring Literary Series

In the late 1980s, pediatric endocrinologists at the Children's Hospital in Winnipeg began to notice a pattern.

Indigenous youngsters from two First Nations in northern Manitoba and northwestern Ontario were showing up not with type 1 (or insulin-dependent diabetes), but with what looked like type 2 diabetes, until then a condition that was restricted to people much older. But these youth were just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next few decades more children would confront what was turning into not only a medical but also a social and community challenge.

Diagnosing the Legacy is the story of communities, researchers, and doctors. Through dozens of interviews, Larry Krotz shows the impact of the disease on the lives of individuals and families as well as the challenges caregivers faced diagnosing and then responding to the complex and perplexing disease, especially in communities far removed from the medical personnel and facilities available in the city.

As a writer and filmmaker, Larry Krotz has explored the ways our actions affect our world from Africa to Canada's North. He is the author of five books, including Piecing the Puzzle: the Genesis of AIDS Research in Africa.

Dr. Heather Dean is a retired pediatric endocrinologist at Children's Hospital in Winnipeg and professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba. She was a young clinician when she first identified type 2 diabetes in children with Indigenous heritage. Her entire professional career was dedicated to working with many multidisciplinary groups to understand the complexities of this new disease.

See:

Diagnosing the Legacy

- Larry Krotz , Frances Desjarlais , Heather Dean

Trade paperback $24.95
Reader Reward Price: $22.46

In the late 1980s, pediatric endocrinologists at the Children's Hospital in Winnipeg began to notice a new cohort appearing in their clinics for young people with diabetes.

Indigenous youngsters from two First Nations in northern Manitoba and northwestern Ontario were showing up not with type 1 (or insulin-dependent diabetes), but with what looked like type 2 diabetes, until then a condition that was restricted to people much older. Investigation led the doctors to learn that something similar had become a medical issue among young people of the Pima Indian Nation in Arizona though, to their knowledge, nobody else.

But these youth were just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next few decades more children would confront what was turning into not only a medical but also a social and community challenge.

Diagnosing the Legacy is the story of communities, researchers, and doctors who faced--and continue to face--something never seen before: type 2 diabetes in younger and younger people. Through dozens of interviews, Krotz shows the impact of the disease on the lives of individuals and families as well as the challenges caregivers faced diagnosing and then responding to the complex and perplexing disease, especially in communities far removed from the medical personnel a facilities available in the city.