From the [UK] Guardian:

Bestselling British science fiction writer Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease three months ago, condemned the “shameful” lack of funding for the disease.

Speaking at a conference of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust in Bristol, Pratchett said he wanted to “kick a politician in the teeth.”

The disease affects 700,000 people in the UK, but only £11 is spent per patient every year on research, compared to £289 for each cancer patient.

“There’s nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with the disease will double within a generation,” Pratchett said.

“It’s a shock and a shame, then, to find out that money for research is 3% of that which goes to find cancer cures”

… The author, who has sold more than 55 million books worldwide and recently published the 36th book in his Discworld series of humorous fantasy novels, is donating £494,000 ($1m) to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.

Earlier post here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 6:09 am and is filed under alzheimer's, books, international, politics, research funding, research news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post