Must reads

• A June 26, 2014 The Tampa Tribune editorial underscored the importance of Florida Governor Rick Scott's efforts to fund Alzheimer's research and featured ResearchersAgainstAlzheimer's founding member Dr. Dave Morgan. According to the editorial, "The magnitude of this neurological scourge should not be underestimated — especially in Florida…As David Morgan, CEO of USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute in Tampa, points out, Alzheimer’s research receives about $55 million a year in the United States. Cancer receives about $6 billion. The disparity could be seen this year as the Legislature provided $60 million for cancer research, a smart investment. But Alzheimer’s disease is just as devastating to individuals, and their families suffer as well."
• A June 25, 2014 Huffington Post Black Voices post highlighted African American Network Against Alzheimer's Director Stephanie Monroe's Washington Post letter-to-editor calling for more African American participation in Alzheimer's clinical trials. 

• A June 25, 2014 Wall Street Journal Q&A with MIT Professor Andrew Lo highlighted the potential of a new Alzheimer's funding model to energize stakeholders in the fight against the disease. According to Lo, "We found that if you spend $38 billion over 13 years, you would get the double-digit return that I mentioned. And if there’s a huge rate of return in fighting Alzheimer’s, it gives us hope that if you have the right financial vehicle, you can solve this problem. It’s not because the economics don’t work. It’s because we don’t have the right structure for those assets to be deployed. But I believe if we have two successful trials, we could be attractive to investors."
• A June 25, 2014 USA Today article reported that a new study from the University of California-San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center found that "Veterans who suffered brain injuries while in the service were more likely to develop Alzheimer's decades later." According to the article, "It's not clear why head injuries may play a role in dementia, said lead researcher Deborah Barnes, an epidemiologist at the VA and associate professor at UCSF, but it's possible that the more insults the brain experiences, the more vulnerable it becomes to dementia. It's also plausible that a brain injury could lead directly to the development of brain plaques that eventually cause Alzheimer's, she said." Also reported on by Reuters and others.