Ms. Maureen Reagan
National Board Member
Alzheimer's Association
Thank you Dr. Htun. To my colleagues, I come from a slightly different perspective. I'm one of the people who has their hands out asking for help - continually.
Let me explain that before I came to the Alzheimer's Association, I had spent over thrity years with the Arthritis Foundation, an organization nationally and internationally which deals with the most crippling disease for many millions of our fellow citizens of the world. As the United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women I traveled extensively throughout the developing world, calling attention to raising money for and making sure that American projects included traumatized children centers, orphanages, and various health programs which would make the world a little better place. As a cancer survivor myself, let me just tell you that having survived melanoma, which is a terrible skin cancer, for those of you who are playing golf tomorrow I want to see you all in sun screen - and I have worked on that issue.
So, six years ago when my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease everything that I had ever learned about community organizing, about bringing attention to the plight of families dealing with disease, to the needs for research, all the things I've ever done in a lifetime, came into play. It won't help us, but we must be the last generation of families that has to live without hope. As we work throughout the world to create a better world, to create better health for the peoples of the world; to find ways to increase the longevity of all of our fellow humans; we then get to the next epidemic, the epidemic of aging -- and that epidemic includes Alzheimer's Disease.
Let me explain very briefly that Alzheimer's Disease is not dissimilar to other things that happen to our bodies. In the brain everyday there is a protein amaloid which kind of greases the skids and makes all the neurons function and keeps it all going and it is eliminated on a continual basis.
But something happens - usually at a fairly advanced age -- but something happens like the tartar on your teeth that turns to plaque, like the fat in your arteries that turns to plaque, and whether it is an enzyme that either overreacts or under-reacts in the immune system, that amaloid in the brain turns to plaque, and becomes hard, and interferes with neurons' abilities to fire against each other.
And so the first things that we see are a loss of memory, a loss of short-term things, forgetting what you did yesterday, or what you read last night, or what you had for dinner, and then going on and on from there.
But the brain tells the body everything to do. It tells you to stand up. It tells you to sit down. It tells you to walk. It tells you to swallow. It tells you to breathe. And eventually, these things do disintegrate. And that's why it is a terminal illness. And so you are diagnosed with a terminal illness which the family must then come 180 degrees around and deal with for years as they watch this person -- this father, this brother, this husband, this wife this sister, this mother -- lose their ability to communicate with the family over a period of time; as they lose their physical ability to live. And it is a horrible thing to see and one that I do not wish on anyone.
We have in the Alzheimer's community, a triangle of research activities. I always refer to as a triangle because I consider each three of the legs to be equally important. The first is what we ask from our governments; the kind of money for research that can only be available in a general sense. We have at our national institutes of health five-year studies underway -- in vitamin E, in ibuprophen, in ginko biloba, in estrogen. Things we will be able to tell you within five years, at the age of thirty-nine you should be taking thus and so of such-and such in order to protect yourself in years to come. These are the kinds of general research projects that a government can undertake. That have effects for things beyond just one disease, but can benefit everybody with things readily available to them today.
The second leg of the triangle is what the pharmaceutical companies do. Pharmaceutical companies like Esay-Pfziser and their Erisep, their treatment which can push off the onset of this disease. That can plateau someone at the point in which we intervene - for two years, and maybe even up to five years - and in some cases even buy someone a lifetime. Those are very important programs.
The Elan Corporation with their help of Aethena Labs in South San Francisco just last summer conducted a trial in which they took genetically engineered mice -- mice that were genetically engineered at a later age to get Alzheimer's -- and they created a vaccine out of human amaloid and they vaccinated these mice and the mice did not get Alzheimer's. And then they took that amaloid and they created another agevid and they injected mice that already had Alzheimer's and they watched the immune system begin to work again, and to eliminate the plaque from the brains of these mice. Now, this was a huge step - a giant new street of science that we can explore. We're several years away from knowing exactly how effective that will be, but it was so exciting for all of us.
But that's where the third leg of that triangle comes in. You see, those genetically engineered mice were a research project that was financed by the Alzheimer's Association and the generosity of our sponsors and friends at the University of Minnesota. And without our mice those tests would not have been possible.
And so as I tell our people in our over two-hundred chapters around the United States and in our International Conference which will be held in Washington (for the first time in the Untied States) this July. Without us the other two legs don't stand. And we are a private organization. We have to go out and ask for help from individuals and from companies, and to impress upon you that this is good business. That the people who will lose work because of having to care for loved ones; the people who will have to leave you early because they are affected by this disease; the people whose lives are shattered; those are your people. And so you can help us create an environment in which Alzheimer's is not allowed to exist.
Now there are many wonderful, worthwhile causes. Many of which I have worked for myself in the past. So I don't put us out as, 'You must give to us.' You must give to someone, but there are ways to do it. We have for instance, Alzheimer's Awareness Month in the United States. It's in November. Interestingly enough, it is November because in 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed November as Alzheimer's Awareness Month, because he felt it was a disease had not been paid proper attention. He had no idea that less than twenty years later, he would be a victim of that disease. But we still celebrate that Awareness Month because of his proclamation.
His second proclamation of course, was when he wrote his letter to the world and told us that he had this disease and asked us to understand and to help those who would be suffering as our family would suffer. It was the bravest thing he could have done. He's always been my hero, but never more so that when he wrote that letter, and he made it all right. (applause) Thank you. And he made it all right to talk about this disease. And so that's what I do. This is my father's unfinished work.
And so whether I'm asking for a major contribution from the Ford Corporation, or asking that you allow us to come into your plants and, along with other charitable groups, make the pitch to employees for their support, with hopefully matching grants from management for what they do. If we can set up teams that will participate in our Memory Walks which we do throughout the entire month of October in over two-hundred chapter areas around the country - where people come out and because of the money that they are able to put together in these memory walks. They finance the programs in the local community which benefit the patients and caregivers right there in that community. Whatever it is that we can do, I want us to be partners. And I want us to understand that there's something in it for both of us.
This disease is an equal opportunity disease. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. If it decides to attack your brain, it just does it. We're going to lose this battle. But we will not lose this war.
And so I speak to you today on behalf of all of the worthwhile causes - ours especially - and to tell you that we are depending on you. Just as that list of sponsors there on the wall shows you what a wonderful conference can accomplish, that's the kind of support that we need. So please don't say 'No' when we come ask - just help us find a way to make it work for everybody and I promise you that I will not go home until I can bring you an Alzheimer's survivor who can tell you how we won.
Thank you.