Funding needed for Alzheimer’s disease

I agree with Gary Streit's Nov. 5 letter 'Cancer research and funding matters”

on the subject of funding for diseases that kill our population. I would think that of all the duties a congressperson has that the most satisfying and comfortable feeling would come from funding research to alleviate these diseases. As bad as cancer and heart disease are, they have benefited from research and many victims are having extended lives with their loved ones from the advances made.

Alzheimers is a disease that suffers from inadequate funding. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regards it as its No. 5 killer. The CDC reported 83,494 deaths from Alzheimers. Whereas the Alzheimers Association estimates the number should be higher by a factor of five or more making it the No. 3 killer following cancer and heart disease. The reason for this discrepancy is that physicians and pathologists report on death certificates that death was from pneumonia rather than from Alzheimers leading to pneumonia.

Research dollars from the National Institutes of Health go to the highest ranking diseases. Cancer and heart disease have benefited from research because research yields answers and Alzheimers needs answers. Alzheimers is an incurable disease and a fatal disease. Ninety-five percent of Alzheimers deaths are eventually from aspiration pneumonia due to inactivity. A new determination of Alzheimer's disease is reported every 68 seconds in the United States.

Kenneth Kirby

Cedar Rapids