Must reads

• A February 3, 2014 Roll Call article reported on the efforts of Alzheimer's advocates, including USAgainstAlzheimer's, to increase federal funding for Alzheimer's research. According to the article, "The $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill (PL 113-76) included $1.2 billion for the National Institute on Aging, which Senate appropriations aides said is a $131 million increase over actual fiscal 2013 spending. In the explanatory statement accompanying the bill, appropriators said they expect a “significant portion” of the boost to go toward research on Alzheimer’s, leaving the specific amount to the agency to avoid what they described as politicizing the peer review system…George Vradenburg, chairman and co-founder of USAgainstAlzheimer’s, said the lawmakers’ move is a signal that they recognize the problem."
• A February 3, 2014 Roll Call article reported on the G8's commitment to Alzheimer's disease. According to the article, "Health representatives from the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States made a number of commitments, including the following: A goal of finding a cure or disease-modifying therapy for dementia by 2025, which echoes the timeline in the U.S. National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as increasing “collectively and significantly the amount of funding for dementia research to reach that goal.”…Calling for “greater innovation to improve the quality of life for people with dementia and their carers while reducing emotional and financial burden.”"
• A February 3, 2014 Wall Street Journal article reported that ten pharmaceutical companies have "formed an unusual pact to cooperate on a government-backed effort to accelerate the discovery of new medicines." According to the article, "Under a five-year collaboration to be announced on Tuesday, the companies and the National Institutes of Health have agreed to share scientists, tissue and blood samples, and data. They aim to decipher the biology behind Alzheimer's, Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and to thereby identify targets for new drugs.The price tag, roughly $230 million, is relatively small: The global drug industry spends about $135 billion a year on research and development. But the collaborators seek something money can't buy.By pooling their brightest minds and best lab discoveries they hope to put together a research system that can decipher the diseases in ways each hasn't been able to on its own." [Full article attached]