Alzheimer’s disease has entered the 2016 presidential campaign.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for $2 billion in annual funding for research toward finding a treatment and a cure.
“We owe it to the millions of families who stay up at night worrying about their loved ones afflicted by this terrible disease and facing the hard reality of the long goodbye to make research investments that will prevent, effectively treat and make a cure possible,” the Democratic front-runner said in a statement Tuesday.
Clinton’s plan marks the first time a presidential candidate has made Alzheimer’s disease a campaign issue in this election, and it comes just days after President Barack Obama signed into law a federal budget that increases Alzheimer’s research funding by about 60 percent. The new federal budget allocates $936 million for Alzheimer’s research; Clinton’s proposal more than doubles that.
“Secretary Clinton’s proposal ups the ante on the nation’s commitment to investing in research to discover better treatments for this disease,” said Dr. Jason Karlawish, co-director of the Penn Memory Center. “Alzheimer’s is now front and center in the 2016 presidential race. It will be interesting to see both how her party and her Republican opponents respond to her proposed increase in spending. Alzheimer’s disease just might be the one issue that unifies the parties.”
More than 5 million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer’s disease. By 2025 — the benchmark date Clinton has set for finding a cure — more than an estimated 7 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s. Without a breakthrough in research, treatment costs will likely top $1 trillion by 2015.