WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) Tuesday joined a bipartisan group of colleagues in co-leading the introduction of two bills in the Senate that would cement and build on the important progress that has been made to tackle Alzheimer’s disease.
The bills would reauthorize the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) and the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act until 2035.
With Alzheimer’s costs reaching over $320 billion per year, including $206 billion in costs to Medicare and Medicaid, it is more important than ever for the U.S. to have a sustained coordinated strategic national plan to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease and ensure that research investments remain coordinated and their impact is maximized.
“No family deserves to go through the pain of watching their loved ones fade away to this awful disease as I experienced with my mother,” Menendez said. “Congress must do more to make sure the U.S. is leading the way in understanding Alzheimer’s and reducing risk factors, as well as expanding early diagnosis and providing assistance to patients and their families. I’m proud to continue fighting for this cause in my mother’s name by cosponsoring and advancing these bills to ensure one day we have a world without Alzheimer’s.”
“We have made tremendous progress in recent years to boost funding for Alzheimer’s research, which holds great promise to end this disease that has had a devastating effect on millions of Americans and their families,” said Sen. Collins. “The two bills we are introducing will maintain our momentum and make sure that we do not take our foot off the pedal just as our investments in basic research are beginning to translate into potential new treatments. We must not let Alzheimer’s define our children’s generation as it has ours.”
The NAPA Reauthorization Act co-led by Senators Menendez alongside Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.), and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) — would reauthorize NAPA through 2035 and modernize the legislation to reflect strides that have been made to understand the disease, such as including a new focus on promoting healthy aging and reducing risk factors.
The Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act — authored by Sens. Menendez, Collins, Markey, Capito, Warner, Moran, Murkowski, and Stabenow — would continue through 2035 a requirement that the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) submit an annual budget to Congress estimating the funding necessary to fully implement NAPA’s research goals. Only two other areas of biomedical research — cancer and HIV/AIDS — have been the subject of special budget development aimed at speeding discovery.
In 2021, family caregivers provided 16 billion hours of unpaid care for loved ones with dementia. Nearly half of baby boomers reaching age 85 will either be afflicted with Alzheimer’s or caring for someone who has it.
“With the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) set to expire by 2025, passing the NAPA Reauthorization Act and the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act is urgently needed. These bipartisan pieces of legislation would continue the critical work of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease to support Alzheimer’s research and improve the delivery of clinical care and services for people living with Alzheimer’s and their families,” said Robert Egge, Alzheimer’s Association chief public policy officer and AIM executive director. “The Alzheimer’s Association and AIM are deeply grateful to the sponsors for reintroducing this important legislation to help improve the lives of those impacted by Alzheimer’s throughout the nation. We look forward to working with these bipartisan congressional champions to swiftly pass these bills.”
“By making these her first two bills of the new Congress, Senators Menendez and Collins have once again demonstrated her unwavering commitment to ending Alzheimer’s. The National Alzheimer’s Project Act has played a major role in the advancements we are seeing today but the fight is far from over, which makes these two bills so important” said George Vradenburg chair and co-founder of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s. “Research is key to understanding, preventing, treating, and ultimately curing Alzheimer’s. People living with Alzheimer’s and their loved ones are grateful for champions like Senator Collins and her colleagues who stand with us in our fight to end this terrible disease.”
Sen. Menendez is the co-author of the Concentrating on High-Value Alzheimer’s Needs to Get to an End (CHANGE) Act, bipartisan legislation to encourage early assessment and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. There are over 6 million Americans over 65-years-old living with the disease.
In 2021, Sen. Menendez joined a bipartisan group of colleagues in urging the Biden Administration to establish an ambitious national goal to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and to develop a plan to achieve this goal.
