[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 111 (Thursday, September 5, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6077-H6078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              ALZHEIMER'S

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss a serious 
disease or illness that affects a great many in our country. It is 
Alzheimer's disease.
  I have been a longtime advocate for increasing research for treatment 
and cures for Alzheimer's. I was particularly touched by a recent 
article in Time Magazine by Patti Davis, President Ronald Reagan's 
daughter, discussing her family's battle with Alzheimer's. I include 
that for the Record.
  The article referred to is as follows:

                       [From Time, Aug. 26, 2002]

                        The Faces of Alzheimer's

                            (By Patti Davis)


  We learn about the disease by looking into the eyes of victims--and 
                             their families

       The day after the first anniversary of my sister Maureen 
     Reagan's death, Charlton Heston announced that he had been 
     diagnosed with ``symptoms consistent with early stages of 
     Alzheimer's.'' Sometimes in life, there are odd 
     juxtapositions of events--an interplay of circumstances that 
     makes one pause and wonder what forces are at work. This was 
     one of those times for me. Maureen was so committed to 
     defeating the scourge of Alzheimer's, to getting more funding 
     for research and increasing understanding of the disease that 
     she sometimes delayed her own treatment for the melanoma that 
     eventually killed her.
       Maureen would have tirelessly done interviews on Aug. 9; 
     instead, her husband Dennis Revell spoke to the media, as did 
     the actor David Hyde Pierce, who lost both his grandfather 
     and his father to Alzheimer's. My mother released a 
     statement. Maureen's voice had been silenced, but her 
     activism, her determination, were still present.
       We learn about diseases through the faces of those who are 
     stricken. Famous faces garner the most attention, obviously. 
     When we think of Alzheimer's, my father's face comes to mind. 
     Or Iris Murdoch's. And now Heston's. When Parkinson's is 
     mentioned, we picture Michael J. Fox or Muhammad Ali.
       But there is another way that faces tell the story. You 
     have to lean closer, look carefully into the eyes, study the 
     set of the jaw and the tilt of the head. I recognized more 
     than the famous visage of Heston when I saw his taped 
     announcement. I saw the first shallow waves of a cruel 
     disease lapping at the edges of the person he has always 
     known himself to be. I recognized it because I saw the same 
     look in my father's eyes eight years ago.
       In the early stages of Alzheimer's, the eyes have a 
     wariness, a veil of fear. It's as if the person is standing 
     at the edge of a fog-bank, knowing that in time it will 
     engulf him and there is no chance of outrunning it. I used to 
     see my father's eyes simultaneously plead and hold firm. It 
     would happen when a sentence broke off because he couldn't 
     remember how to finish it. Or when he would say, ``I have 
     this condition--I keep forgetting things.'' He was on a high 
     wire, balancing on courage, with the dark waters of fear 
     below, and he was using every bit of his strength to cling to 
     that wire.
       Slowly--sometimes over months, sometimes over years--the 
     eyes stop pleading. There is a resignation, an acceptance of 
     distance, strangeness, a life far from home. You know the 
     look when you see it, and the only mercy is that fear seems 
     to have subsided.
       The eyes of family members change too. My brother Ron's 
     eyes show the sweet stoicism that men seem born to possess. 
     But looking more intently, I see the bubble of pain beneath 
     the surface. A father's helplessness has to tear at the 
     fibers of a son's heart like a dull blade. My own eyes have 
     too much history in them, I often think. I was the little 
     girl who worshipped her father, and the young women who hurt 
     him the way daughters do when their love is needy and true. 
     Now I look at him in a soft, maternal way, which still feels 
     odd to me, even after all these years. As if the laws of 
     nature have been turned upside down. My mother's eyes are 
     frequently such deep wells, I have to look away. A 50-year 
     marriage is full of intimate memories that live in the blood 
     of lovers and life partners--memories that are both 
     benediction and punishment. So much life has been shared, and 
     so much has been lost.
       I could tell you that I don't fear getting the disease 
     myself because I know how toxic fear is, how paralyzing. But 
     in the next breath I would have to tell you that there are 
     late hours of the night when I lie awake and wonder what fate 
     has in store for me.
       At other times, I study photographs of my father from many 
     years ago, or film clips. I don't want to forget how his eyes 
     used to look. Alzheimer's teaches a harsh lesson--that the 
     past is like the rudder of a ship. It keeps you moving 
     through the present, steers you into the future. Without it, 
     without memory, you are unmoored, a wind-tossed boat with no 
     anchor. You learn this by watching someone you love drift 
     away.
       I woke last night and listened to the silence. It was a 
     late, deep hour, long after midnight, long before dawn. I 
     though about how, for someone with Alzheimer's, silence must 
     be like a prison, another corner of the wasteland. There can 
     be nothing soothing or serene about it.
       Perhaps the next time members of Congress assemble to 
     decide how much money to set aside for Alzheimer's research, 
     they should be asked to listen to silence differently, as if 
     it were a jail sentence. Maybe then they would look into 
     their hearts and know that if stopping a disease that is 
     stalking so many is not a top priority, we have lost our 
     collective heart as a nation.

  During the August recess, I had the opportunity to speak to the 
Houston Alzheimer's Association's educational symposium in Houston with 
Dr. Rachel Doody, who has a well-known research program at Baylor 
College of Medicine in the Texas Medical Center. The number of people 
at that event, it amazed me. It was the first time I had the 
opportunity to address that group and see how many people were 
interested.
  The battle that we have affects far too many Americans. More than 4 
million Americans, one in ten over 65 and nearly half those over 85, 
suffer from Alzheimer's disease. With the aging baby boom population, 
unless a cure is found, 14 million Americans will have Alzheimer's by 
2050.
  I personally have been touched by Alzheimer's when my mother-in-law 
was diagnosed with this disease several years ago. I know firsthand the 
incredible toll Alzheimer's has on not only that person, but also the 
family. As a family member, I know the heartache of watching a vibrant 
and active and independent loved one become lost in a world of 
confusion, isolation, and despair. I know the frustration that there 
are so few treatments and no cure to this disease.
  As a policymaker, I am concerned by the staggering economic burden of 
this illness. The U.S. society spends at least $100 billion a year on 
Alzheimer's. Neither Medicare nor most private health insurance covers 
the long-term care many patients need. Alzheimer's disease is costing 
American business $61 billion a year: $36.5 billion is the cost to 
business of caregiving, and the rest is the business share of the cost 
of health care and long-term care.

[[Page H6078]]

  While I am proud that the National Institutes of Health spends almost 
$599 million on Alzheimer's disease research, that number seems 
insignificant in light of the cost of this disease. We must do more to 
study the causes and risk factors of Alzheimer's and to develop a new 
way to diagnose the disease, and to develop new methods for treatment 
and caregiving.
  Five years ago, Congress made a commitment to double the budget of 
the NIH so more money could be invested to find a cure for many 
diseases, such as Alzheimer's. I have been a longtime proponent of 
doubling the funding for NIH, and hope we will be able to achieve our 
goal of doubling the NIH budget in this, the final year of that 
commitment.
  But there are other things Congress can and should do to aid in the 
fight against Alzheimer's. We must ensure that the individuals who care 
for people with Alzheimer's have the resources they need to keep their 
family members at home as long as possible.

                              {time}  1215

  We should pass legislation which allows individuals to deduct their 
long-term care expenses from their income tax and would help alleviate 
some of the financial burdens on the family caring for a loved one with 
Alzheimer's. We should pass legislation which would provide respite 
care for these caregivers. These are just a few steps Congress should 
take.
  I urge the leadership to take up these bills and do everything we can 
to support the millions of Americans who suffer from Alzheimer's. I 
would like to close with a quote from Patty Davis's article in Time 
magazine of last week: ``Perhaps the next time Members of Congress 
assemble to decide how much money to set aside for Alzheimer's 
research, they should be asked to listen to silence differently as if 
it were a jail sentence. Maybe then we would then look into their 
hearts and know that if stopping a disease that is stalking so many is 
not a top priority, maybe we have lost our collective heart as a 
Nation.''

                          ____________________