Congress Takes On Alzheimer's

On October 20th 2010 I posted an article on my blog entitled, “Ramping Up
Investment In Alzheimer’s Research”. In this article I mentioned the National Alzheimer’s Project Act and how it had been languishing in a committee in our 111th Congress without being brought to a vote.

I am pleased to see that the United States Senate voted to pass the National
Alzheimer’s Project Act (S. 3036) on December 8th 2010.

The bill now goes to the House of Representatives (HR 4689) for a vote. Time is running out and we need everyone to call, write to, or e-mail their House representatives, urging them to vote affirmatively for the bill. Once done, it then moves to the desk of President Obama for approval and signing.

The key elements of NAPA, previously presented in my October 20th blog are again listed here.

National Alzheimer’s Project Act, or NAPA. (S.3036 and HR4689). This bill was sponsored by Senators Evan Bayh (Dem -IN), and Susan Collins (R - ME)on February 24th 2010. This piece of legislation includes the following action items.

1. Establish an Office position for AD within the Health and Human Services administration.
2. Accelerate treatments to prevent, halt, and reverse Alzheimer’s Disease.
3. Responsible for the creation and maintenance of an integrated national plan to overcome AD.
4. Coordinate the healthcare and treatment of citizens with AD.
5. Ensure the inclusion of higher risk ethnic and racial populations in the
receipt of care,research and the participation in clinical trials.
6. International coordination.
7. Provide information and coordination of AD research and services across
all Federal agencies.

According to sponsoring Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) the bill “will create the first-ever national level plan to combat Alzheimer’s.”

Enacting NAPA, is a major signal that our government is finally taking seriously the approaching “Alzheimer’s Hurricane” threat to our aging Baby Boomer population and their parents.


Jeff Dodson
December 13th 2010