From the Baltimore Sun:

Public health experts say the nation needs to set up national health registries, similar to those now in place for cancer, to track trends and focus research on a long list of conditions. Among them are Alzheimer’s disease, autism, multiple sclerosis, asthma and heart disease.

Registries for birth defects are in place in only 15 states, according to the CDC. Cancer registries contain information on the age, race, gender, county of residence, diagnosis, treatment and outcome for patients across the country.

Scientists say the cancer registries have been valuable in learning the causes and trends of cancer, and in developing prevention and treatment strategies. “We also can have those benefits for other diseases,” said Thomas A. Burke, an epidemiologist and professor in the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It takes political will, and it does take funding, but there’s an awful lot of interest there.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 1:18 pm and is filed under alzheimer's, autism, cancer, chronic illness, multiple sclerosis, public health, 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