One less cook: ACDE is defunct

About two years ago, I wrote an essay, Too Many Cooks, and a Modest Proposal, in response to the founding of a new diabetes organization, the ACDE (the Academy of Certified Diabetes Educators). Well, that newcomer is now defunct.

ACDE split off from another diabetes organization, AADE, because of "a deep desire to craft an organization focused on the needs of the CDE and to offer a platform where they could engage in dialogue and activities to both enhance their platform of service and to reach out to their colleagues in a meaningful and exciting manner." (Or, in other words, AADE wasn't meeting their needs.)

Recently, I found that ACDE's website (at www.academycde.org) is inoperative. Interestingly, a mirror site (at https://academycde.site-ym.com) still is live, although some of the pages have disappeared. It does include a newsletter from July 2015, but absolutely no clue that the organization was on the ropes. And their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/academycde/ hasn't been updated since August, 2015.

On the other hand, another diabetes organization, NCBDE, still discusses the ACDE as if it were live and well, in a Q&A titled What is the difference between NCBDE and the Academy of Certified Diabetes Educators?. But the phone number given for ACDE at that website is answered by a voice-mail message that describes the organization, then gives another phone number to call: the other phone number is for a management company, not for ACDE!

I eventually was able to contact someone in a position to know if they still exist. And no, they don't: "It folded due to lack of financial and time support." Apparently, an e-mail was sent to their mailing list, but no press release or other announcement was made.

So there's one less cook: ACDE is gone. But the alphabet soup of US diabetes organizations is still rather complex: AACE AADE ADA AND CDC JDRF NDEP and NIDDK.