How squaring cuts, need for aging research

WASHINGTON - a stalemate of the disease may be brewing: how Alzheimer's disease research can receive more $ rare without cutting areas such as heart disease or cancer?

In one of the realities of the crisis budget stark, chances of scientists supported research dollars by the National Institutes of Health for any condition have plunged to a new low.

"We are clearly not capable of withstanding a lot of great science that we support," NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told Senators last week. This year, for all six grant applications NIH receives, "five of them will go begging."

That is down nearly 1 in 3 funded grants there is ten years and 1-5 last year. And it's before the threat compete how much more cut in the overall government expenditure for next year and where these reductions.

A new report said one of the losers is already aging research, despite a population rapidly aging that promises an epidemic worsening of dementia, among other illnesses.

"Nobody wants to say that Alzheimer's disease is worse than the diabetes or heart disease or cancer,", explains Dr. Sam Gandy, a prominent neuroscientist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine of New York.

But "the problem now with all the pressure to reduce the budget... is that for Alzheimer's disease, something else has to lose," says Gandy. His own laboratory is scrambling of funds to study a potential drug for dementia after losing by an aging NIH grant.

The NIH pays for a large part of research biomedical leader of the nation. Republicans and Democrats alike have long been fervent supporters. But nearly $ 31 billion budget of the Agency offers an example of the difficult choices facing legislators, especially if they are to respond to calls from home at a drastic scale-back of the overall budget.

The issues of ageing.

The NIH spends approximately 469 million for Alzheimer's disease, according to a new report of Foundation of America critical Alzheimer's global aging research as "a small and declining investment."

About 5.4 million Americans now have Alzheimer's disease, and studies suggest spending health and home care nursing cost more than 170 billion dollars per year, a large part is paid by Medicare and Medicaid.

Collins of NIH told a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that there is a "very frightening cost curve." By 2050, when more than 13 million Americans are projected to have Alzheimer's disease, the Bill should reach a staggering 1 billion dollars. But he said that cost could be reduced by half simply by finding a way for people to delay for Alzheimer's by five years.

Monday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich jumped into the debate, saying that over the next four decades Alzheimer's disease could cost the Government a total of $ 20 billion. He suggested selling U.S. bonds to raise funds for research rather than having the disease to participate every year for a share of the federal budget.

"We are grotesque underfunded," Gingrich said of the health research fund.

Report of the foundation of Alzheimer's disease is dementia, concluding that the National Institute on Aging receives 3.6 cents for every dollar that Congress sends to the NIH. Cancer and heart disease get almost three to four times more. Despite the economic slowdown, the Foundation joined other groups to pressure for an extra 300 million for the comprehensive work of the Institute of aging next year, to boost its budget of $ 1.4 billion.

Competition in today's dollars is fierce, with applications up to 60 per cent to only aging division since 2003. Aging leader Dr. Richard Hodes, said last year, the Institute could not pay for about half of what was classified as the most outstanding applications for research projects. He still hopes to fund researchers more this year by limiting the number which are particularly important.

What is the squeeze? Congress doubled budget of the NIH in the beginning of the 2000s, an investment that has contributed to the genetic and revolution speed, a host of new scientific projects are claimed to try. But in recent years, economists say the NIH budget has not kept pace with medical inflation and this year Congress cut the overall financing of the NIH by 1%, less than expected after a long battle.

The administration of the Obama sought to 32 billion for next year, and the prospects to avoid a break instead are far from clear. Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Subcommittee which oversees the issue, warns that in some early circulating House plans to reduce health spending, "serious reductions for NIH would be inevitable." That is not logical. ?

Senator Jerry Moran, R - Kan, pushed Collins to assert the fact that investment in medical research really can pay off.

Response of Collins: four decades of research conducted by the NIH has revealed how the arteries to be blocked and stimulated the development of the fight against cholesterol statins, helping lead to a reduction of 60 per cent died of heart disease. On average, that search cost about $3.70 per person, per year, "the cost of a latte and not even a large latte", Collins told legislators.

"Urgent need" for research on Cancer in minorities: U.S. Report (HealthDay)

the United States need to urgently expand research and improve the understanding of cancer in minority populations, according to a special report published Thursday by Cancer Panel of the President.

While minorities currently represent approximately one third of the U.S. population, they should become the collective majority by 2050, according to the report.

The Committee noted that "minority and other underserved populations are affected disproportionately by some cancers, are often diagnosed at later stages of the disease and often survival."

In addition, the incidence of cancer in minority populations is projected nearly double over the next 20 years.

"Most of what we know about cancer is based on studies of non-Hispanic whites, but towards the middle of the century, this group will be only 38% of the population, said Margaret l. Kripke, an Emeritus Professor of Immunology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston"Member of the Committee. "We need more data on cancer in minority populations so that we can begin to implement specific prevention measures."

The report recommends more research on the sociological factors that may explain disparities in mortality among minorities.

"There were many studies in recent years to try to understand genetic differences in the sensitivity of cancer-associated, but there are also cultural factors that can affect mortality due to cancer, said Kripke." In some cultures, people are so afraid of a diagnosis of cancer that they seek treatment until it is very late. ?

Current cancer screening guidelines should be assessed, the Committee has noted, "to determine their accuracy in the evaluation of the burden of disease in various populations".

"Standardized testing guidelines do work," said Kripke. "For example, breast cancer screening guidelines were relaxed so that women can begin to have mammograms later and can be projected less often, but we know that there is an early age for the onset of cancer of the breast in Latinoet populations therefore if you change the guidelines based on the". most people, these women will be left. ?

Another recommendation is that "cultural competence" become an integral part of the Faculty of medicine, as well as continuous training for all health care providers and administrative staff.

Dr. Otis w. Brawley, Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society, praised the report and said he "hit all the points of rights".

"The greatest thing we need to do is to get people access to care, the thing is to ensure that they receive good quality care, and then we must ensure that care is provided in a user-friendly environment where the patient feels welcome"said Brawley. ".

It noted "the first two are in fact much easier to make than the third,". "Many poor people, but especially poor black and Hispanic poor, suspicious of the medical system and think that the hospital not really wants to take care of them - they want just for their Bill and use them to teach their students in medicine.".

Kripke has recognized that many of the recommendations have spend more money at a time where the health care system is already financially stretched.

"For example, we know that the best way to provide information to cancer patients whose primary language is not English is through a medical translator, but how many hospitals can afford to do?" she said.

The Committee concluded that the disparities in research and cancer care will be finally eliminated only by addressing the social factors involved in bad health outcomes, such as poverty, substandard housing, lower educational status and lack of access to quality health care.