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Opinion: Like Nixon’s ‘war on cancer,’ President Trump should open a war on Alzheimer’s

Progress has almost ground to a halt on #Alzheimer's. President Trump should use his #SOTU speech to announce a war on the disease to speed the development of new treatments.
Less than a year after declaring a “war on cancer” in his 1971 State of the Union address, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law. President Trump should do something similar for Alzheimer's disease.

“The time has come in America when the same kind of concerted effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease.” That was President Nixon in his State of the Union address 48 years ago. The dread disease he was talking about was cancer, the second leading cause of death in the country, and he used the address to open his “war on cancer.”

Since then, we have made major strides against that disease. Death rates have been declining for 25 years. Breakthrough treatments and cures are now coming at breakneck speeds. But we have made little or no progress against another “dread disease”.

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