The Administration has released the President’s budget, now to be considered and modified by Congress. While the President’s budget – no matter who is President – is never the final budget, it does signal strategic intent and policy preferences by the Administration.

Cure Alzheimer’s Fund is deeply concerned about several provisions of this budget, specifically, the approximately 21% cut to the National Institutes of Health in general; and the approximately 36% cut to the National Institute on Aging.

The NIH is the primary funder of basic medical research in the United States. Neither pharmaceutical companies nor philanthropy comes close to the amount of funding provided by the NIH for the basic, necessary research from which virtually all therapies originate.

Progress has been made in recent years to improve funding for NIH and therefore for more high quality basic research into numerous diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Cure Alzheimer’s Fund has worked very closely with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and other Alzheimer’s disease advocacy organizations to champion increases in Alzheimer’s disease research funding at NIH. Working together, we have all been successful in more than doubling research funding in the last few years to more than $1.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2017 at NIH. As we have repeatedly said, independent experts have called for $2 billion a year in funding and we are continuing to work with all partners to reach this goal.

The proposed cuts not only threaten this bipartisan progress, but will without a doubt set back and diminish the hard-earned pace of discovery.

Cure Alzheimer’s Fund will continue to work with allies in Congress from both parties to prevent these devastating cuts from becoming reality and ensure robust funding for Alzheimer’s disease research.

Timothy W. Armour
President and CEO, Cure Alzheimer’s Fund