USAgainstAlzheimer’s Applauds Senate Committee Action
Washington, DC – The Senate Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies today approved the FY2016 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill, which contains a $350 million increase for the National Institute on Aging as part of an overall $2 billion bump for the entire National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Committee included additional language in its report noting that it expects a significant portion of the NIA increase to fund Alzheimer’s disease research.
The Senate panel’s action comes one day after the House Appropriations Committee advanced an FY 16 spending bill that included a $300 million increase in Alzheimer’s disease funding.
USAgainstAlzheimer’s and other Alzheimer’s stakeholders strongly supported this push for increased funding through multiple advocacy actions and efforts to secure cosigners of the FY 2016 Alzheimer’s research appropriations letters which was signed by more than 30 Senators.
Below is a statement from George Vradenburg, founder and co-chair of USAgainstAlzheimer’s.
“We’re grateful to the Senate Appropriation’s Committee and for Chairman Blunt for taking this important step today. It demonstrates the strong bipartisan and bicameral support behind a meaningful increase in Alzheimer’s research funding – a rare feat these days.
“We are thankful to have several Alzheimer’s champions on the committee including Ranking Member Barbara Mikulski and Senators Susan Collins, Jerry Moran, Barbara Mikulski, Shelly Moore Capito and Bill Cassidy, and we look forward to working with all of them to move this forward.
“Alzheimer’s is our nation’s most expensive health crisis necessitating that our nation’s level of research funding needs to be commensurate to the severity of the disease. This additional funding is an important step toward the rapid ramp up to $2 billion that Alzheimer’s researchers and the NAPA Advisory Council have said is necessary to meet our national goal of stopping Alzheimer’s disease by 2025.”
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USAgainstAlzheimer’s is an innovative and relentless advocacy organization demanding a transformative solution to Alzheimer's. Driven by the suffering of millions of families, USAgainstAlzheimer’s presses for greater urgency from government, industry and the scientific community in the quest for an Alzheimer's cure – accomplishing this through effective leadership, collaboration, advocacy, and strategic investments. We are committed to ending Alzheimer’s by: accelerating the means of prevention and treatments; increasing the resources committed to stopping Alzheimer’s; and delivering dramatic improvements in the systems to support those living with Alzheimer's and their care partners, while continuing our fight for a cure.