Must read opinions 

• A January 9, 2014 Press-Citizen (Iowa) editorial called on the US to mobilize a world effort against Alzheimer's. According to the editorial, "To turn that hope into reality, it will be critical for the United States to step up to the plate and mobilize the world in this effort. Although no county can stop Alzheimer’s by itself, the U.S. is in the best position to coordinate the fight against what some public health advocates are calling the “the international health crisis of our time.”"
• A January 9, 2014 The Daily Herald (TN) opinion piece by Steve and Cokie Roberts focused on the need to protect funding for NIH research and government support for biomedical innovation. According to the authors, "And yet in a profoundly misguided policy, NIH funding has stayed flat for a decade; factor in inflation, and purchasing power has actually declined. Moreover, the automatic spending cuts known as a “sequester” sliced another 5 percent from the budget last year…All this progress could be endangered by the fiscal shortsightedness that seems to have infected much of Congress. Not all government spending is equal. Yes, a sizeable chunk of it is wasteful and careless. But some of it is absolutely essential to America’s national interest.Good investments turn profits and pay dividends. Funding biomedical research and closing the innovation deficit is just such an investment: the highest, best use of hard-earned taxpayer dollars."
• A January 9, 2014 Sacramento Bee opinion piece by Susan Salka called on the US to produce more doctors as diseases like Alzheimer's and diabetes are accelerating. According to Salka, "Growth in the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes could reach 86 percent by 2034 and growth in the number with Alzheimer’s could reach 40 percent by 2030. While there are 10 million cancer survivors today, there will be 18 million by 2020. That equates to a lot of extra demand for medical services, driven mostly by our aging population…Although we do not know yet who is right in this debate, common sense and the sheer math of an aging patient and physician population come down on the side of more U.S. licensed doctors, not fewer."