National Basketball Association star Ray Allen is asking Congress to go into the fourth quarter to beat type 1 diabetes, the potentially fatal disease that afflicts Allen's six-year-old son Walker and three million other Americans.
Allen, fresh off helping his Miami Heat winning the NBA title in June, is testifying Wednesday before a Senate committee asking that special funding of type 1 diabetes research be restored as a multi-year appropriation, instead of the single-year outlay that the federal government began making in recent years in the face of tighter budgets.
"We're in the process of doing so many great things, there's so many chances out there of doing research, so much new innovation and technology," said Allen, whose family has to closely monitor Walker's blood sugar day-and-night and give him insulin.
But the 10-time All Star guard said that research can get stopped "right in its tracks" when funding isn't guaranteed over multiple years.
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