The following column appeared in this morning's (5/18/95) NY Times:
"Using Our Brains", by William Safire
Practical peoople agree that the best way to balance the budget is to
reduce by half the relentless increase in the cost of Medicare.
But no politician of either party wants to face up to the need to push
the elderly into cost-saving managed care, or to ask rich geezers for
substantial co-payments.
What sweetener can we come up with to make the budgetary medicine go
down? Many seniors on Medicare are frightened; how can we replace their fear
with hope?
A couple of Nobel laureates came to Congress this week with a big chunk
of the answer. One is molecular biologist James Watson, co-discoverer of
DNA; the other is physicist Leon Cooper, pioneer of superconductivity.
These heavy hitters left their original disciplines to concentrate on
today's most exciting and productive field of medicine: the science of the
brain.
"Neurological and psychiatric disorders," says Dr. Watson, "count for
more hospitalizations and more prolonged care than almost all diseases
combined." One in five Americans is directly affected. The Dana Alliance
for Brain Initiatives estimates the yearly costs of everything from stroke,
depression, tumors and head injuries, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, PARKINSON'S
(emphasis added) and other afflictions of the brain to exceed a half-trillion
dollars a year.
Now here's the good news: According to "Delivering Results: A Progress
Report on Brain Research", just released by the alliance, breakthroughs have
been stunning in starting to treat and cure these ailments that fill up our
hospitals.
Genes have been found that lead to Alzheimer's and a transgenic mouse
has been produced to test drugs to slow the disease's onse; brain scientists
expect medication by 1999. A treatment has been identified to alter the
course of multiple sclerosis. New findings show how genetic research may
treat manic-depressive illness, drug and alcohol addiction, and epilepsy.
Relief for some sufferers of migraine headaches is already here.
Neuroscientists used to conceal their excitement about potential
advances; other diseases, from cancer to AIDS, received more publicity and
support. Now the brain scientists have awakened to the need to report to the
public and Congress the results they have been delivering; they are willing
to predict what other measurable results and private and public investment in
more research would bring.
I was roped into helping raise awareness of brain science by David
Mahoney, head of the Dana Foundation, who organized the scientists' alliance;
Jim Watson calls him "this generation's Mary Lasker," afteer the
philanthropist who energized health care.
As a Dana board member, I was inspired to write this piece by the
examples of Mike Wallace, who is willing to talk candidly about his bouts of
depression to help others, and Judy Woodruff, rearing a son with spina bifida
and speaking out about the need for research on brain diseases.
To the political point that scientists cannot make: One way to slow
Medicare's rising cost is to cure or ameliorate diseases that drive prople
into hospitals. Neuroscience has demonstrable momentum halfway through this
"decade of the brain"' by pressing our strength now, we will save trillions
in a few years.
With such a payoff in sight, common economic sense suggests Americans
invest at least a few more billion in brain research. Let's see the state of
play:
The Clinton budget for the National Institutes of Health proposed only a
4 percent increase,with not enough of that earmarked for neuroscience.
Clinton is at least moving in the right direction; but the early G.O.P.
proposals are more shortsighted, actually cutting the dollars needed to
finance tomorrow's cures.
That's a no-brainer, pennywise and pound foolish. The House Republican
leader who grasps the potential - life saving and money saving - of
biomedical investment is John Porter of Illinois; if he can sell Newt
Gingrich on the need to outstrip the Clinton proposal, brain research is
likely to find a sympathetic ear in the Senate's Pete Dominici.
The political message should be clear: Seed money invested in brain
research will help contain the cost of Medicare while giving an aging
generation new hope.
