Finding a cure matters more than money

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Alzheimer's disease has quickly become one of our nation's most critical health challenges.

In order to investigate genetic corroboration of the disease and pharmaceutical testing, the Obama administration has promised to increase funding for Alzheimer's research by $50 million this year.

The gene factor of this disease is something I strongly believe is an important issue.

This may sound like an extremely large amount of money, which of course it is. But compared to the $3.1 billion spent on HIV/AIDS research and $5.8 billion on cancer, it's barely a drop in the bucket. This will bring the amount that the National Institutes of Health spends on Alzheimer's research to $500 million this year.

I've always disfavored putting one disease ahead of another, but the general public needs to understand that there are no survivors from Alzheimer's. It's a fatal disease.

About half of the aforementioned $50 million will be used to identify genes and gene mutation, which is crucial in finding a cure.

Keeping today's economic situation in mind, federal funding for anything is almost impossible, so we really need to make sure that every penny counts. History shows that there have been many studies that actually showed promise, only to have stalled because of lack of funding.

It is my opinion that, if the forward progression of this disease is not tackled, it will completely bankrupt our health-care system single-handedly.

Medicare and Medicaid alone are spending about $130 billion annually on treating Alzheimer's patients. Throughout the next 10 years, the summation of this care is expected to reach $2 trillion.

This is how financially devastating this disease will be to our country and to the world.

At present there are about 5.5 million people suffering from this disease solely in America. If new research could at least find a way to slow down the onset, the number of hardships diminished, physically and financially, would be enormous.

There's no time to waste on this matter. Alzheimer's is now the fifth leading cause of death in the United States.

For many years I have been an advocate of finding a cure, and I can't tell you the number of tragic losses I've witnessed resulting from this disease.

As members of the Baby Boomer generation are now coming into the prime age for this disease, the time to find a cure is — now!