Nearly 73,000 Americans died of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2006, the most recent year for which numbers are available. By comparison, about 14,000 died of AIDS. And yet the amount of money spent on Alzheimer’s research by the federal government is a fraction of the $2.9 billion it spends on HIV/AIDS research.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 56,300 Americans were newly infected with HIV in 2006, while there were more than 411,000 new cases of Alzheimer’s. And yet, federal funding for Alzheimer’s research has been stuck at about $650 million a year for the past five years, compared to the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS.
I’m not suggesting that funding for HIV/AIDS research be curtailed. But it is obvious from these numbers that the federal government’s priorities are out of whack when it comes to dealing with a far, far more serious threat to the country’s population and its health-care infrastructure and resources than AIDS represents. In relative terms, the federal government is not exactly ignoring Alzheimer’s, but it is certainly not taking it as seriously as it should. Get this: Federal per-patient spending on West Nile Virus research is $15,564 annually while per-patient spending for Alzheimer’s is a measly $124.
Alzheimer’s is the degenerative, always-fatal brain disease that destroys its victims’ lives before it takes them. Experts predict that, as the Baby Boom generation ages, the number of cases diagnosed each year will increase to half a million by 2010 and almost a million by 2050.
Alzheimer’s and other dementias account for about a third of the $450 billion now spent on Medicare beneficiaries. In just 25 years, one expert told Congress, Alzheimer’s costs will approach the entire amount now spent on Medicare. In other words, Alzheimer’s-related costs will overrun the Medicare system, and Medicaid as well.
The cost will not be paid in public dollars alone. Seven of 10 Alzheimer’s sufferers live at home and 75 percent of the care they receive is provided by loved ones, at an average cost to families of $19,000 a year. When the patient can no longer live at home, families face paying half or more of the cost of a nursing home or assisted-living center. The disease destroys not only its victims’ brains and lives, it destroys their families’ financial stability.
In the great majority of cases Alzheimer’s manifests itself after age 65. So even if research does not immediately produce a cure, discoveries of drugs and therapies that delay the onset of the disease by a few years will greatly reduce the number of people who experience it — and will prevent much of the staggering cost to society. There have been promising discoveries already, including some drugs that temporarily delay early symptoms. But much more is needed.
One reason that Alzheimer’s research funding has lagged behind other diseases is that it does not have a vocal constituency. Alzheimer’s victims can’t speak out to Congress about the disease because, eventually, they can’t speak. There are no survivors to tell their stories because no one survives it. Families of victims are too busy and too wiped out emotionally and financially caring for their loved ones to do much advocating.
So it is up to Congress to wake up and do something to head off the debacle that looms in the not-too-distant future. Funding for Alzheimer’s research, compared to spending on other diseases, ought to reflect the huge threat that it poses to the nation’s health and welfare. A good start would be at least $1 billion a year for research.
David Averill, 581-8333
Originally published by David Averill, 581-8333.
(c) 2008 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
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