The Devastation of Alzheimer's Disease

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, recently, The Sacramento Bee wrote a three-page article on Alzheimer's and the effect that it has.

I would like to quote from that newspaper:

Gasps were audible as the images flashed before the gathering scientists at a recent U.C. Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center pathology conference. On the screen before them were photos of a brain, severely wasted with age, with what looked like silver rivers of atrophy cutting deeply through the tissues. Even for the experts, it can be shocking to see the damage that Alzheimer's disease inflicts on the aging brain.

What can stop the devastation of Alzheimer's?

Without better answers from researchers, the degenerative brain disease--already the Nation's sixth leading cause of death--will be diagnosed in as many as 16 million aging baby boomers by 2050. Unchecked, it will rob millions of their memories and lives, of their pasts and futures, even as it threatens to overwhelm the health care system.

Tonight, in a bipartisan 1-hour session, we are going to talk about Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, our time is being cut short, but we will take this up again in the weeks ahead as we deal with one of the most profound and expensive and damaging issues Americans face.

I have here a diagram that explains what is going to happen with Alzheimer's cost to Medicare and Medicaid in the years ahead. Right now, it is $122 billion, and it will rise in 2020 to $195 billion, to $346 billion in 2030, and by 2050, it will be approaching $1 trillion.

We have a problem. Americans--every family is facing this issue. My family has, and I suspect every other family in this Nation at one time or another already has faced this issue, and they will in the years ahead.

This is not a new issue for the Congress. It is an issue that has been dealt with. There has been legislation introduced, and in a few moments, I will talk about some of the bills that have been introduced by my colleagues here in the Congress, both on the Democratic and on the Republican sides of the aisle.

This issue has to be addressed, and the principal thing we need to do is to provide research and care and support for the families that have this issue in their midsts.

I want to take up a couple of other charts and then turn to my colleague from Kentucky.

This chart deals with the issue of what is going to happen with the funding. If we are going to solve this problem, we are going to have to increase the funding. We are, fortunately, spending around $5.5 billion a year on cancer through the National Institutes of Health.

HIV/AIDS is close to $3 billion a year. Cardiovascular issues are around $2 billion. Alzheimer's is down here at just over $566 million. We are not yet at $1 billion on this. As we can see here, this is going to be the most expensive illness facing the Medicare and Medicaid populations in the future years.

We also know of the deaths from the illnesses that have the greatest funding--breast cancer down 2 percent, prostate cancer down 8 percent, heart disease down 16 percent, stroke down 23 percent, and HIV--a remarkable success--with deaths now declining by 42 percent.

On the other hand, deaths from Alzheimer's are increasing at a rate of 68 percent.

So we are seeing this extraordinary shift occurring in the illnesses that are facing Americans and their families. We are seeing this extraordinary increase in Alzheimer's deaths as we see, thankfully, success. Often, that success is a direct result of what is happening with the research that is going on.

I would like now to turn to Mr. Guthrie, my colleague from Kentucky, as he discusses this issue from his perspective. And then we will spend the next 15 minutes in a dialog about this problem.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko.

I know Mr. Guthrie may have some additional remarks. We have got about 7 minutes. I am going to take maybe 3 minutes and talk about some of the legislation that is here. I am going to go through this very quickly.

Mr. Markey, who is now a senator, introduced H.R. 1507 when he was here in the House. This deals with the Social Security and Medicare diagnosis.
Of course, we have the Accountability Act you have introduced, Mr. Guthrie.

There is H.R. 489, the Global Alzheimer's Resolution. Next month is Global Alzheimer's Month. This will be part of that effort to talk about this issue around the world.

We have H.R. 4543, the PACE Pilot Act, to keep elderly people in their homes, which was introduced by Chris Smith, who will join us the next time we come out on this issue.

And also, H.R. 2975, the Alzheimer's Caregiver Support Act, was introduced by Representative Maxine Waters and, again, deals with the kind of support that you and Mr. Guthrie were talking about.

One more. We have H.R. 2976, the Missing Alzheimer's Disease Patient Alert Program, dealing with the issue both of you have talked about with elderly or people with Alzheimer's that wander off.

All of these are bipartisan pieces of legislation. All of them in one way or another deal with this problem.

The one thing that is not among these is specific money for research, which I would hope comes from our efforts to talk about this and make this a major issue.

Mr. Guthrie, I know you have some additional comments.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. I would like to close with a statement of hope and a statement of opportunity. Here is what happens when you spend money on research and on treatment. Breast cancer is down 2 percent, as well as deaths from these other cancers. Prostate cancer is down, heart disease is down, stroke is down, and HIV has a 42 percent decline. That is what research and treatment will do.

Alzheimer's is up 68 percent. That is what happens when you spend this kind of money.

Cancer, over $5 billion a year. The result, a decline in cancer. HIV/AIDS, almost $3 billion a year. You see the extraordinary success of that. Cardiovascular illnesses, $2 billion.

Again, a decline in each and every one of these causes of death. With Alzheimer's, right around half a billion dollars. The result is this: increased deaths.

So we have a way of answering this question of what to do with this, and that is turn our focus on the research and the care and the support for the families. That should be our watch word.

I think that is a bipartisan way of going at this. That is something that we can focus on as 435 Members of this House and our colleagues over in the Senate. This is a bipartisan issue, a bicameral issue, with a known path to a solution.

With that, we are out of time this evening. I want to thank my two colleagues in a bipartisan hour, my Republican colleague from Kentucky and my friend who is often on the floor with me, Mr. Tonko.

We are going to come back and do this for another hour in the last half of the month of June. I know that there are several of our Republican colleagues that wanted to be here tonight. And I know the Democrats do, also. We will see if we can go move forward with a solution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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