Washington, DC (March 27, 2025) – Today, the United States Department of Health and Human Services announced “dramatic restructuring” that will eliminate an additional 10,000 people from its workforce, in addition to the 10,000 positions already eliminated this year. This injects further instability, uncertainty, and delays into the system that gives us disease prevention, cures, and safety monitoring.

People with degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s do not have time to waste. Alzheimer’s disease is the only top 10 cause of death that has no cure and impacts over 50 percent of American families. The systemic disorder in our health care could delay or even prevent millions of people from receiving life-saving treatments and is already interrupting critical cure pathways. 

UsAgainstAlzheimer’s Chair and Co-Founder, George Vradenburg, released the following statement:

“Alzheimer’s is a growing national crisis that impacts families across every community, and we cannot afford to take our foot off the gas in the pursuit of effective treatments and a cure. Hasty decisions made in secret that disrupt funding and remove experienced staff at key health agencies like the NIH, FDA, and CDC hinder the progress we have fought so hard to achieve.

“We have heard the Secretary say that his department will ‘do more with less’, and we hope he’s right.  But we have already seen disruption in research for a cure with the first round of cuts, and that disruption has meant that the government now is doing less with less. Another round of cuts made without any transparency is sure to mean even less. This cannot be the legacy the President wants to leave.

“With more than 6.9 million Americans currently living with Alzheimer’s and millions more serving as caregivers, the disease remains one of the most significant health and economic challenges of our time. 

“We recognize the importance of increasing efficiency, and we support efforts to streamline progress toward a cure, but the recent restructuring decisions have been made without input from patients, and they appear to have been made without fully considering their impact on patients. So far, the funding cuts that have been implemented and are being proposed have slowed down our ability to find a cure. We urge the administration and Congress to act with greater transparency and collaboration. UsAgainstAlzheimer’s remains committed to working alongside policymakers, researchers, and advocates to ensure that ending Alzheimer’s stays a national priority.”