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HHS names members to Alzheimer's panel
The federal government has named 12 members to a first-of-its-kind advisory council on Alzheimer's charged with proposing a national strategy for dealing with the costly disease.
Alzheimer's, the only disease among the top 10 causes of death for Americans that has no known cure or treatment, already affects an estimated 5.4 million Americans, at a cost of $183 billion a year.
The number of affected people is expected to triple in the coming decades, and President Obama in January signed into law legislation that aims to reduce the burden on families and federal health programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.
• Chairman Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging;
• Anita Albright, director of the Office of Healthy Aging and Disability in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health;
• Laurel Coleman, a physician at Maine Medical Center's Geriatric Assessment Clinic;
• Eric Hall, founding president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Inc.;
• David Hoffman, director of chronic disease prevention at the Office of Long Term Care in the New York State Department of Health;
• Harry Johns, president and CEO of the Alzheimer's Association;
• Jennifer Manly, an associate professor with the Department of Neurology at Columbia University Medical Center;
• Helen Matheny, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Outreach and Registry Program (AORP) at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute;
• David Hyde Pierce, an actor and patient advocate;
• Laura Trejo, general manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging;
• George Vradenburg, chairman of the national advocacy network USAgainstAlzheimer's and the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer's Initiative; and
• Geraldine Woolfolk, a patient advocate and former teacher.
"We are pleased to have this group of experts and advocates assisting HHS in developing a national plan for Alzheimer’s disease," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. "We received an overwhelming number of nominations, demonstrating not only the impact of this debilitating condition but the widespread commitment to address it."
The 12 newly announced panel members will be joined by 10 members from federal agencies on the advisory council.
