April 16, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

Jennifer Brokaw (daughter of Tom) highlights medical-decision making burden that falls to women, the GOP's efforts to cut the National Science Foundation's budget, and the need to increase NIH funding (read more). 

 

Must reads

  • An April 16, 2014 Time Magazine article by healthcare advocate Jennifer Brokaw, daughter of Tom, "points to the burden of medical-decision making, for which wives and daughters bear the brunt." According to Brokaw, "Everyone admires the woman who can “have it all,” be a mother, wife, and have a career and a full personal life. When we talk about what derails women’s careers, the conversation focuses on having children. The truth is that “sandwich generation” women have a lot more on their plate. It’s time to give advance care planning and healthcare decision-making the attention it deserves. It’s a woman’s prerogative."
  • An April 14, 2014 Boston Globe article reported on the GOP's efforts to cut the budget of the National Science Foundation. According to the article, "This is the latest front in a GOP-led war against the federal funding of social science and other research, including the study of climate change, in an age of fiscal austerity. House Republicans are questioning millions of dollars in National Science Foundation grants awarded to researchers across the country by singling out dozens of projects for extra scrutiny...While on the surface it might seem like the usual partisan bickering, the proposal raises deeper questions about what role the government should play in funding science where the payoff is more difficult to discern than, for example, the quest for the genetic codes that could unlock the mysteries of cancer."
  • An April 14, 2014 Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall highlighted major issues with the process that research projects are funded by the National Institutes of Health. According to the article, "Scientists who seek NIH funding submit research proposals that are reviewed by panels called study sections. Each application gets a score, and funding decisions are made on the basis of these scores and available funds. Thanks to the budget sequester, the rate at which proposals receive funding is at a historically low level. The primary mechanism for funding biomedical research in the United States has become a crapshoot…The chronic underfunding of science gambles with society's future. The NIH claims that it funds the best science by the best scientists and takes pride in the rigor of its peer review. But tens of thousands of meritorious grant applications now go unfunded each year, and according to multiple outside analyses, the ones funded are not necessarily the best. Of course we would prefer to see research funding restored to levels that allow all deserving research projects to proceed. Until that time comes, a lottery would be an efficient way with which to award grants." Dr. Fang is professor of laboratory medicine and microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Casadevall is professor and chairman of microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.