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Terminal Alzheimer's Victim Pleads for Increase in US Research Funds
As he testified before a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Jackson, 54, sometimes hesitated as he sought words or lost his train of thought, but always managed to get his message across.
"It is imperative that Congress increase the federal commitment to Alzheimer research now because I want to be an Alzheimer survivor, much like the breast cancer survivors who are alive because of advances in cancer research and treatment," he told the dozen senators and hundreds of people packed into the hearing room.
Jackson showed a picture of 14 relatives who, like him, had early-onset Alzheimer's, an often overlooked form of the illness that strikes adults in their 40s and 50s.
"We have to quit thinking of Alzheimer's as an age disease," Jackson said. "Our society believes that when a person gets to a certain age and they get Alzheimer's, that's normal ageing. It's a disease, not normal ageing."
Jackson learned in 2000 that he had a gene that gave him a nearly 100 percent chance of developing early onset Alzheimer's. Immediately he began taking medication that had been tested in clinical trials.
"Before I got on this cocktail, I was losing my speech, falling down, showing other symptoms ... If we didn't have what we have now, I wouldn't be able to stand here and talk to people," he told AFP after the hearing.
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