Plea to end funding scandal in battle to find dementia cure

SCIENTISTS are demanding an end to a scandal that is starving dementia research of vital cash.

Those at the forefront of efforts to find a cure have begged ministers to urgently increase the amount of money they receive.

Current funding does not begin to match the scale of the dementia crisis facing Britain, they say.

Their call comes as Chancellor Philip Hammond prepares to deliver his Spring Statement setting out future spending plans in the Commons today.

Experts say brain wasting diseases now pose the most significant health threat of our time.

Dementia is now Britain’s biggest killer.

Yet in 2016/17 dementia research received less than a third of the money that was dedicated to cancer research.

Alzheimer’s Research UK is asking for the search for a cure to receive at least one per cent of the annual cost of dementia care.

That would see research receive £320million a year by 2025.

In 2016/2017 it received £83.1million of public money. In contrast cancer research got £269million.

The charity’s chief executive Hilary Evans said: “Dementia research and treatment lags far behind other major disease areas like cancer. This inequity has resulted in slower progress in our ability to treat dementia.”

A petition has been launched on the Government website calling for more funding and will remain open until March 25.

If it attracts 100,000 signatures the issue will debated in Parliament. By last night more than 24,000 people had added their names.

Comedian David Baddiel, 54, whose father Colin, 83, is living with a form of dementia, urged the public to sign up.

Colin is one of 850,000 people with dementia in the UK.