WASHINGTON — A firm federal commitment to increased biomedical-research funding is the best defense against the wave of Alzheimer's disease predicted to hit over the next 40 years, according to Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Addressing a hearing called by the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Mr. Gingrich urged annual overall funding increases of “at least” 7% after inflation for the National Institutes of Health.
He urged similarly broad financial support for the National Science Foundation (NSF), which sponsors research in math, physics, and chemistry that, Mr. Gingrich said, provides the foundation for both the drugs and imaging systems necessary to fight Alzheimer's. “The biggest mistake I made as Speaker was not tripling the National Science Foundation budget and, as a result, we are not getting the investments we need [in these areas],” he said. “Most of the research that underlies the imaging technology we have today, which allows us to have real-time images of a living brain, was developed at the NSF.”
Mr. Gingrich addressed the Senate committee in his role as the founder and a member of the Alzheimer's Study Group, a bipartisan think tank urging a national strategic plan to deal with the projected surge in Alzheimer's disease. Studies indicate worldwide prevalence could quadruple by 2050, reaching 107 million people. In the United States, prevalence could rise from the current 4.5 million to more than 13 million during the same period. Such an increase would devastate the country's health care system and seriously harm the economy, Mr. Gingrich told the committee.
By 2050, federal government spending on care for Alzheimer's patients could dwarf the current annual bill of $150 million. “Federal spending on Alzheimer's [care] will increase to more than $1 trillion per year by 2050, in today's dollars—that is more than one-tenth of America's current economy.”
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whose husband, John O'Connor, suffers from advanced Alzheimer's, also urged the committee to support research. While a cure would be the “Holy Grail,” she said, even a drug that could delay the onset of Alzheimer's would reap huge savings.
The government could also step up the pace of research with legislation encouraging private investment, Mr. Gingrich said. “I would strongly urge you to amend the Orphan Drug Act to include all brain research as orphan drug activity.”
The downside of following the orphan-drug path would be longer-than-normal patents on any drugs developed, Mr. Gingrich said. But the benefit to patients would be worth the increase in costs resulting from drugs being slow to go generic, he asserted.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), committee chairman, called the hearing to support a bill that would double the funding specifically for Alzheimer's research at the National Institutes of Health to $1.3 billion. The Alzheimer's Breakthrough Act was introduced last year. It passed through the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions last July and made the Senate Legislative Calendar in August but hasn't received further action since then.
Retired Supreme Court Justice O'Connor and former Speaker of the House Gingrich testified at the Senate hearing. Michele G. Sullivan/Elsevier Global Medical News