WASHINGTON – – George Vradenburg, Chairman of USAgainstAlzheimer’s tonight applauded President Obama’s clear call to protect Alzheimer’s research funding from drastic spending cuts in the State of the Union. The president’s bold remarks come just days prior to the March 1 deadline for lawmakers to reach a deficit deal in order to prevent extreme budget cuts across the federal government. Without a deal, the sequester would deliver a crushing blow to National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Alzheimer’s research.

"As President Obama boldly noted in tonight’s State of the Union, now is the time to renew our investment in biomedical research, including Alzheimer’s disease, ‘not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation.’

“From polio to cancer and from heart disease to HIV/AIDS, we see that a commitment to research investment and targeted innovation on high-cost diseases is a proven deficit reduction strategy.

“The looming sequester is set to enact unthinkable budget cuts to life-saving medical research. It is imperative that Congress take action to avoid these automatic, sweeping cuts that would decimate life-saving and cost-reducing Alzheimer’s research."

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USAgainstAlzheimer’s is a national advocacy campaign and advocacy network committed to stopping Alzheimer’s by 2020. An independent non-profit organization working in partnership with the Alzheimer’s community, USAgainstAlzheimer’s works to advance policies and elect candidates dedicated to stopping the disease by supporting research for a cure. For more information about USAgainstAlzheimer’s, http://www.usagainstalzheimers.org.