Shocking New Alzheimer's Statistics--Why Doesn't the NIH Allocate FAIR Funding?!

NOTE: These figures are for US research allocations only. You may have heard that $15 BILLION was allocated over five years (pending to double to $30 billion) to fight global AIDS, TB and Malaria.

Notice that every year Alzheimer's kills nearly as many Americans (72,696) as the combined total for AIDS (16,316), prostate cancer (27,350), Parkinson's (17,898), Hepatitis C (12,000) and West Nile Virus (161). And since Alzheimer's often occurs on top of other diseases and can last over ten years, soon there won't be enough caregivers, healthcare professionals and services to care for all the victims. And even though there are four medications that can slow/mask the progression of AD, better treatments and a cure just have to be found.

The founder of the FAIR foundation, Dr. Richard Darling, has tirelessly made 100+ presentations in Washington DC to legislative health aides in the Senate and House office buildings, pointing out these vast discrepancies in funding. He stresses that when Congress allocates an across-the-board percentage increase in funding to the NIH, without redistribution to correct the present gross inequities, it is unfair for all non-AIDS illnesses.
 
Each year an increase in the total funding has resulted in greater disproportionate funding, so the gap between illnesses like HIV, that receives exorbitant funding, and those like Alzheimer's that don't, has grown larger and larger. Example: If Congress were to increase NIH funding by seven percent there's a compounding effect as the increase in AIDS funding would be a whopping $194 million, while Alzheimer's would only receive $43 million and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease only $4.4 million--and those diseases kill three and nine times more Americans annually!

There is an argument that AIDS deserves more funding than other illnesses because it is communicable. But why should patients suffering from non-communicable and non-preventable illnesses such as Alzheimer's, prostate disease, etc., be discriminated against because they cannot transmit their disease or because it was acquired congenitally or environmentally? That line of reasoning just doesn't make sense.

Recently, because of budgetary limitations resulting from our government's commitments, including the war in Iraq and restoring areas ravaged by hurricanes, increases for all bio-medical research funding has ceased. Therefore, it is appropriate that the existing funds get reallocated fairly now. So before BILLIONS are spent on a preventive measure (research for an HIV vaccine is pending), it is so much more appropriate that redistribution of those funds go to other illnesses--including Alzheimer's and the other fifteen maladies that kill a MILLION more American's a year than HIV/AIDS.

If reallocation happens: 61 million with cardiovascular disease, 21 million diabetics, 5.2 million with Alzheimer's, as well as multi-millions with a variety of illnesses, will applaud that an equitable funding policy change has finally been made. Approximately one million with HIV/AIDS may be dismayed for a while.

Please watch this ABC 20/20 broadcast "Disease Politics" by John Stossel, which illustrates the discrepancies in NIH research funding that has been going on for years: http://www.fairfoundation.org/Amer_Diabetes_Assoc_ABC_TV.wmv  

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Please contact your representatives and urge them to allocate more funding for Alzheimer's Research. You can even use a prepared letter from the FAIR Foundation if you like: http://fairfoundation.org/Alzheimers_advocacy_alert.htm . Simply enter your zip code and then send to the politicians of your choice. You may also choose to join me and thousands who support the FAIR Foundation by joining FREE at http://fairfoundation.org/join.htm.