Political Quotes

“I rise today to support passage of two bipartisan bills aimed at continuing the significant progress we are making in treating and, one day, preventing and curing Alzheimer's disease. These bills--S. 133, the National Alzheimer Project Act, or NAPA, as it is referred to, Reauthorization Act, and S. 134, the Alzheimer Accountability and Investment Act would help coordinate the tools of the Federal Government toward reaching these important goals. And I would note, on the floor is the cochair of the Alzheimer's task force in the Senate, Senator Markey, along with the other two cosponsors we are fortunate to have, Senators Warner and Capito. When I first joined the Senate in 1997, there really wasn't much of a focus on Alzheimer's in Washington. It was often called senility and was thought of not as a disease but just as part of growing old. To increase public awareness of Alzheimer's disease, to advance research, and to bring the disease to the forefront of the Congressional agenda, I founded the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's in 1999 here in the Senate. A true milestone in focusing our efforts was the passage of the Bipartisan National Alzheimer's Project Act that I coauthored with then-Senator Evan Bayh in 2011. Before we passed that legislation, which became known as NAPA, there was no coordinated strategic plan to focus our efforts to defeat this devastating disease and ensure that our resources were maximized and leveraged.…”