US President Barack Obama’s administration adopted a landmark strategy to fight Alzheimer’s yesterday, setting the clock ticking toward a deadline of 2025 to finally find effective ways to treat, or stall, the mind-destroying disease.
Starting yesterday, embattled families and caregivers can check a one-stop Web site for information about dementia and where to get help. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is greenlighting some new studies of possible therapies, including a form of insulin that is squirted into the nose.
The world’s top Alzheimer’s scientists gathered this week to decide what other research should take place next in order to meet that ambitious 2025 deadline.
The US’ first National Alzheimer’s Plan comes at what many scientists think is a pivotal moment. Alzheimer’s is poised to become a defining disease of the rapidly aging population.
“There’s a sense of optimism” thanks to some new discoveries, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins told scientists at the Alzheimer’s Research Summit on Monday.
Collins said the NIH would grant US$8 million yesterday to study an insulin nasal spray that could help Alzheimer’s.
Also, the NIH was contributing US$16 million to an international study of whether a treatment targeting amyloid, Alzheimer’s hallmark brain plaque, could prevent the disease.
However, “we need to figure out exactly where is the best window of opportunity” to battle back Alzheimer’s, Collins added.
Already, 5.4 million US citizens have Alzheimer’s or related dementias. Barring a breakthrough, those numbers will rise significantly by 2050 to up to 16 million. Already it is the sixth-leading killer and there is no cure.
Beyond the suffering, it is a budget-busting disease for Medicare, Medicaid and families. Caring for people with dementia will cost the US US$200 billion this year alone and US$1 trillion by 2050.
Sufferers lose the ability to do the simplest activities of daily life and can survive that way for a decade or more. Family members provide most of the care, unpaid, and too often their own health crumbles under the stress.
Alzheimer’s Association estimates. Even that staggering figure does not fully reflect the toll. Sufferers lose the ability to do the simplest activities of daily life and can survive that way for a decade or more. Family members provide most of the care, unpaid, and too often their own health crumbles under the stress.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia