Funding disparities

An epidemic is defined as a disease that appears at a rate that substantially exceeds what's 'expected.' Also, the federal government generally categorizes medical epidemics as reasons for substantial actions to be taken to understand and develop remedies for them. By these loose definitions, two neurological disorders, autism and Alzheimer's disease (AD), have reached epidemic stages, yet the federal government has not taken those substantial actions necessary to offset these troubling trends.

For autism, the rate of autism diagnosed in children under the age of 8 is now 1 out of every 150, about five times the rate of just 10 years ago. For an annual rate of 4.3 million babies (2006), that equates to about 29,000 new cases of autism every year, and the rate is increasing.

For AD, between 10 and 14 million of the 78 million baby boomers will be diagnosed with this disease over the next 20 years (in addition to the 5 million currently diagnosed). Also, according to the Friends of the National Institute on Aging, the Medicare costs for providing healthcare for those afflicted with AD will exceed $189 billion over the next decade. At these rates, AD all by itself could bankrupt Medicare within the very near future, according to the FNIA.

Government AD research is mostly funded by the NIH's National Institute on Aging, which for FY2008 received a total of about $1 billion for all areas of research (0.1% increase over FY2007). Government autism research is mostly funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (along with the NICHD, NINDS, NIDCD and NIEHS), which for FY2008 received about $1.4 billion for all areas of research (0.1% increase over FY2007).

We have an epidemic in two medical areas for which the federal government will not be able to afford their fair share of the resultant future healthcare benefits (not counting cancer, heart disease, HIV, and other medical maladies). And yet, in inflation-adjusted rates, we're actually decreasing the amount of research we're investing every year toward finding a cure for these problems.

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