MUST READS

An August 2, 2015 The San Diego Union-Tribune article profiled Dr. Paul Aisen and his mission of “accelerating the development of effective treatments for Alzheimer's disease." According to the article, “More importantly, Aisen said, there's grounds for renewed optimism that a therapy to at least slow down the incurable disease, if not cure it, may be close. That's a contrast to the despair felt a few years ago after failure of a much-anticipated Alzheimer's drug from Eli Lilly, solanezumab, failed to show significant benefit…Aisen said he is planning to start new clinical trials, one a variation of the A4 study. He’s also working on getting a prequalified pool of clinical trial volunteers ready, who could be quickly assigned to new trials as they are started.”

A July 31, 2015 Bloomberg View editorial (via MassLive) underscored the need to increase Alzheimer’s research funding. According to the editorial, “But in the case of Alzheimer's, money seems to be an obstacle, too. Considering the severity of the disease, and the number of people who suffer from it, Alzheimer's attracts relatively little research money. This year, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S.'s chief funder for medical research, will spend almost 10 times as much on cancer research as on Alzheimer's – even though just four times as many people have cancer-- and it will spend five times as much on HIV/AIDS, even though just twice as many people have AIDS as have Alzheimer's. No wonder the number of deaths from Alzheimer's continues to increase, as deaths from other major diseases decline…Lawmakers may also want to consider that taxpayers will end up paying either way. Medicare and Medicaid will spend $153 billion caring for patients with Alzheimer's and other kinds of dementia this year, or about 261 times what the NIH will spend looking for ways to prevent and cure the disease. Until one is found, these numbers are way out of balance.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

An August 1, 2015 Kaiser Health News interview with Dr. Maria Carrillo, chief scientific officer at the Alzheimer’s Association, highlighted a new study on the impact of Alzheimer's on Medicare. According to Dr. Carrillo, “Unless we change the trajectory of what’s happening today or delay or stop the disease, Medicare and our society will have to think about creating more support systems as these patients age. We’re talking about assisted living and transition living, and more training of professional caregivers. There are 13 million caregivers right now, and we’re going to have to quadruple that. And two-thirds of these caregivers are women that have to slow down their careers or stop work altogether (to provide help to family members).”

A July 31, 2015 Reuters article (via Business Insider) reported that a new study finds that “Among unpaid, informal caregivers of older people with illness or disability, male caregivers in particular can be ambivalent about asking for help.” According to the article, “Caregivers are often family or close friends. Most are women. In the U.K., for example, 58% of informal caregivers are female, according to lead author Dr. Nan Greenwood of Kingston University and St George’s at the University of London. But that leaves more than 40% who are men, and their experience still needs closer attention with specific research, she said. It can be harder to study male caregivers because they are less likely to identify themselves that way, Greenwood told Reuters Health by phone.”

FOOD FOR THOUGHT 

A July 31, 2015 New York Times opinion piece by Ezekiel Emanuel and Steve Joffee warned against patient funded medical research. According to the authors, “The rationale behind the request was understandable. The researchers were frustrated. Ideas about potential tests and treatments for diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease are not being tried out because of a lack of research funds. If a research study otherwise fulfilled all the requirements for a good scientific and ethical study — it has a clear and compelling hypothesis, a detailed protocol, would be reviewed by the cancer center’s research ethics committee, all participants would sign informed consent documents and the results, positive or negative, would be disseminated in the scientific literature — why shouldn’t patients be charged?…By charging participants, maybe a few experimental tests and treatments that would not be pursued under today’s tight research budgets would be funded, and maybe one or two would succeed. But the risks are not worth taking. We must avoid compromising the integrity of the entire research enterprise and the likelihood of exploitation that will inevitably accompany pay-to-play trials.” Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Steven Joffe are professors in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.