Medtronic Once Again Welcome Old Heroes...

Several months ago, Jerry asked for my opinion about a clause in the Medtronic Global Heroes program that prevented diabetics over the age of 40 who've had diabetes for more than fifteen years from even being considered.

As is typical of me, my response was angry and long.

Yesterday, this showed up in my e-mail:

Marcus, thank you for your previous comments regarding the Medtronic Global Heroes program and its guideline related to runners with diabetes. As you know, under that guideline, runners with diabetes older than 40 who were diagnosed with diabetes more than 15 years ago were ineligible to apply.

As promised, Twin Cities Marathon, Inc. and the Medtronic Foundation committed to review and re-evaluate this guideline following the close of the 2008 program applications. We thought you would like to know that we are removing this guideline for the 2009 program.

Of course, runner safety remains the primary concern of both Twin Cities Marathon, Inc. and the Medtronic Foundation. However, our organizations agree with feedback from the Global Hero selection committee that the current application and registration process ensures runner safety without applying the age restrictions.

Future selections will rely on an applicant’s personal running and health history, along with that runner’s physician approval, as the primary determinant, not age or disease longevity.

Again, we thank you for your feedback and interest in this program. We hope you will consider reapplying, or refer others that would enjoy the Global Heroes experience.

So there you have it. Thanks to Jerry for pointing this out. Thank you to the many who sent Medtronic their opinions. And thank you to Medtronic for listening.

And because nothing goes away online - and if you google "Medtronic sucks" my original blog post is high on Page 1 - I've edited the post to point here.