Political Quotes

“Madam President, every 68 seconds--a little more than 1 minute--someone in America develops Alzheimer's. It is a devastating and irreversible brain disease that slowly destroys an individual's cognitive functioning, including memory and thought. Back home in Kansas, a Kansas City physician, Dr. Richard Padula, and his wife Marta had been married for 51 years when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2006. It is difficult to imagine the anguish Dick and Marta and their family and their friends experienced as he deteriorated from a leading heart surgeon into someone unable to comprehend a newspaper article. Unfortunately, these stories have become very common. Alzheimer's currently affects more than 5.2 million people in the United States and more than 35.6 million people worldwide. As our population ages, the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's after the age of 65 will double every 5 years, while the number of individuals 85 years and older with this disease will triple by 2050. Already, Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and there is currently no cure, no diagnostic test, and no treatment for this terrible, terrible disease. As a nation, we should, we must, we ought to commit to defeating one of the greatest threats to the health of Americans and to the financial well-being of our Nation. In 1962, President Kennedy called our Nation to action to reach the Moon by the end of the decade, and Americans rallied around that cry.…”