Comprehensive Addiction And Recovery Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I wish to speak for 5 to 10 minutes about an important matter, and so I appreciate being recognized.

Madam President, what is the pending business?

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Mr. WICKER. We will let the time run on that issue. Alzheimer's Disease

Madam President, at this point I wish to talk about Alzheimer's and an opportunity that we have to cure this most serious disease. We could find a cure for Alzheimer's, Madam President and my colleagues, and we could do it through American ingenuity.

No obstacle has ever been too great for American ingenuity. We have defied seemingly impossible odds in the past. We have eradicated polio from the entire North American Continent and from most of the globe. We have mapped the human genome. We have been to the Moon. We are going to send somebody to Mars. We can conquer Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's was first discovered more than a century ago. When you think about it, we only began human flight about 100 years ago. Think of what we have done in human flight. It just boggles the imagination.

We need to cure Alzheimer's here at the beginning of the second century of this disease. We have made progress in understanding the disease. Yet we still do not know how to stop it. We don't know how to slow it, and we certainly don't know how to prevent it from happening.

Alzheimer's continues to cause profound human suffering. It affects 5 million Americans who have the disease, but not only them. It takes a toll on family and friends forced to watch their loved ones slip away. I could tell you from personal experience I know what I am talking about.

Last month Time magazine featured Alzheimer's on the cover: ``A radical new drug could change old age,'' ``The Longevity Issue.'' There is an article in here entitled ``Alzheimer's from a New Angle.'' I think we need a new angle to address Alzheimer's in using innovative drug trials, as the magazine indicates, but also in a new angle concerning the use of prize competitions. I propose that Congress should look at Alzheimer's from the angle of using the XPRIZE Foundation and using a suggestion that has been endorsed by a number of organizations that have thought long and hard about this.

I introduced the EUREKA Act last fall as a way to reinvigorate the fight against Alzheimer's and related dementias. EUREKA stands for Ensuring Useful Research Expenditures is Key for Alzheimer's--EUREKA. We have found it, and we can find a cure for Alzheimer's. This bill could be the beginning of finding a cure.

Finding a cure is our ultimate goal, but it will take steps to get there. My bill would create prize competitions to reward breakthroughs in Alzheimer's research. I want to assure my colleagues who are very interested in NIH funding that EUREKA would not be a substitute for any dollars that are going to current research funding for Alzheimer's. That would continue, it ought to continue, and we ought to do whatever we can to expand that.

EUREKA would be in addition to what we are doing at the National Institutes of Health. Prizes would be awarded for a number of advancements, perhaps drug treatments to early detection methods. The best part is there would be nothing for us to lose because with a prize competition you pay only for success. Without success, the American taxpayer pays nothing when it comes to the EUREKA bill.

I am grateful for the bipartisan support that my bill has already received in the Senate. Thirty-five of our colleagues have sponsored the bill. I believe by the end of the day I will be able to announce 36. I hope even more will lend their support. Alzheimer's is certainly not a partisan issue. It is a national issue and one of the great challenges of our time, not only from a human standpoint but from a budget standpoint.

Alzheimer's is a major spending issue. It is responsible for $226 billion a year. The estimates are that by the year 2050, those costs will be $1 trillion per year. We have a $19 trillion debt right now. Think of the additional debt that will be piled up unless we tackle this issue and get to a cure. Think of the savings. Think of the other areas we would be able to address if we didn't spend so much of our Medicaid budget on Alzheimer's patients, so much of our Medicare budget on Alzheimer's patients.

Experts say $2 billion in research funding is needed to prevent and treat Alzheimer's by the year 2025. This remains the goal of the Alzheimer's plan, and it remains my goal, but that is a much higher number than we can afford at the NIH level right now.

However, by fostering public-private partnerships, as the EUREKA bill would do, we could build on current resources in new and exciting ways. These partnerships would help unleash the power of American innovation and the power of American competition to encourage people from different backgrounds and sectors to work together in pursuit of a life-changing discovery. This could work. Prize competitions have worked in the past. When Charles Lindbergh achieved a nonstop flight between New York and Paris, he won a $25,000 prize and helped inspire the aviation industry that we know today.

Another example of success in this concept is the XPRIZE. The competition is currently sponsored by the XPRIZE Foundation. The XPRIZE Foundation has been promoting technological breakthroughs for more than two decades. In 2004 it offered $10 million for the first reusable manned spacecraft. This XPRIZE competition generated $100 million in investments by competitors. A $10 million prize generated $100 million in investments by competitors. In 2011, a skimmer that accelerates the cleanup of oilspills was awarded a $1 million XPRIZE.

So this can work and it will work if we give it a chance. The bottom line is that we need America's best and brightest minds working on Alzheimer's right away. We need a way to reward success. Deaths from Alzheimer's are on the rise. Its costs already exceed those for cancer and heart disease. Think about that. The costs for Alzheimer's per year exceeds the cost for heart disease and cancer put together. So we need to put our emphasis where the need is.

I thank all of the organizations that have come together and endorsed this concept. I thank my friends at the XPRIZE Foundation. They stood with me last fall and endorsed this concept. This legislation was designed with the help of the XPRIZE Foundation, in consultation with the XPRIZE Foundation, and they know what they are talking about. I thank the foundation for doing that.

I also thank the following organizations that have endorsed this concept and specifically endorsed the EUREKA bill: a group called UsAgainstAlzheimer's, the Alzheimer's Association, the Alzheimer's Foundation of America, the BrightFocus Foundation, the MIND Center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in my capital city of Jackson, and also a group called Leaders Engaged on Alzheimer's Disease. They all agree that by unleashing this--the concept of a prize competition--we can cure Alzheimer's disease and I hope we will try. This bill is generating support and dialogue for finally putting an end to this devastating disease.

Let's pass this bipartisan legislation.

Thank you.

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