Tester meets with Montana kids representing leading diabetes group

Senator and delegates discuss life with disease, need for medical research

(U.S. SENATE) – Senator Jon Tester this week sat down with two young Montanans representing JDRF, a non-profit group leading the fight to combat juvenile diabetes.

In Tester’s Washington, D.C. office, Bozeman’s Finley Cetraro, 7, and Helena’s William Matz, 9, both type 1 diabetic, told Tester how they cope with the disease. The two also urged Tester to continue supporting funding for medical research.

“We need to do everything we can to help Montanans – especially young Montanans – lead healthy lives,” Tester said. “I appreciate Finley and William sitting down with me to share their stories and talk about how we can fight diseases like diabetes together.”

Cetraro and Matz came for JDRF’s Children’s Congress, an annual meeting that brings kids from all 50 states to share their stories with members of Congress.

Tester, a member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, this week supported a bill that included a $10 million grant to the diabetes prevention fund and more than $1.8 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to research diabetes and other digestive and kidney diseases.

Tester also co-sponsored the reauthorization of the Special Diabetes type 1 program, which was successfully extended to 2016.

Last April, Tester met with the Bozeman chapter of the JDRF in Montana.