Alzheimer's Association Steps Up Action on Federal Research Funding

Alzheimer's Association
Monday, 28 January 2002

Washington D.C.— Alzheimer research at the National Institutes of Health must be increased to $1 billion a year as soon as possible to accelerate the search for a prevention or cure according to the Alzheimer's Association's new national legislative program adopted by its Board of Directors at its January meeting. The association is calling on Congress and President Bush to make conquering Alzheimer's disease a key federal health priority.

Other association legislative priorities include:

- Modernize Medicare so that it meets the chronic health care needs of those who have the disease, beginning with a prescription drug benefit.

- Improve the nation's long term care system by expanding options for care—at home and in other settings—for persons with Alzheimer's disease through appropriate staffing levels and by ensuring those staff are well-trained in dementia care.

The association's national program states, "The United States is facing a serious epidemic. By the middle of the century, 14 million of today's baby boomers will have Alzheimer's disease. For most of them, the process that will destroy their memories, their lives, and their savings has already begun.

"The Alzheimer's Association calls on the nation to harness its resources—public and private—to conquer Alzheimer's disease, much as we have mobilized against cancer, heart disease, and AIDS. We will cheat our children and grandchildren if we save them from these other diseases only to condemn them to spend their last years lost in the labyrinth of Alzheimer's."

"The steady investment that Congress has made in Alzheimer research over the past 20 years is paying off. Science is at the point where effective treatment and prevention of the disabling impact of Alzheimer's disease is now within reach," said Stephen McConnell, interim president and CEO of the Alzheimer's Association. "A solid research infrastructure is in place. The paths for further investigation are clear. The missing ingredient is the money needed to realize the scientific opportunities before us. Continued infusion of funds from the National Institutes of Health will maintain the existing infrastructure and continue the momentum of current research efforts."

The association wants Congress and the president to appropriate an additional $200 million in fiscal year 2003 for Alzheimer research across the National Institutes of Health, and reiterated the goal of $1 billion in total funding by fiscal year 2004, citing as priorities for use of these funds:

- Additional clinical trials to validate results and to test new targets for early intervention and prevention of Alzheimer's disease, with emphasis on testing variability of treatments by race and ethnicity.

- Expanded support for the Alzheimer's disease Center program to maintain the research infrastructure for laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological studies of Alzheimer's disease and to facilitate collaboration among academic health centers to realize results as rapidly and efficiently as possible.

- A major collaborative initiative at NIH on vascular disease and Alzheimer's disease to discover the mechanisms that link the two, and the funding of large-scale clinical trials to determine whether drugs developed to prevent cerebrovascular disease can prevent the clinical expression of Alzheimer's disease as well.

- Establish and fund a program through the Centers for Disease Control to help translate research results to public health practice and to develop a system to report accurately the incidence and prevalence of Alzheimer's disease.

- Fund clinical research on the treatment and management of Alzheimer's disease through agencies responsible for health services research to demonstrate cost-effective delivery of chronic care and disease management for persons with dementia and to develop appropriate outcome measures for Alzheimer care and treatment.

For more information, or to contact Alzheimer's Association, see their website at: www.alz.org