When the late President John F. Kennedy in 1962 committed to
landing an American on the moon during that decade, millions of
people simply assumed it would be done. As Kennedy put it, we
chose to take on the challenge and others like it "not because
they are easy, but because they are hard." All humankind, not
just Americans, now face what in many ways is a task more
difficult than space exploration: treating those who suffer from
Alzheimer's disease. But instead of vowing to beat the illness
quickly, some U.S. policy makers want to take the cautious
approach. President Barack Obama's administration is working on
the first comprehensive approach to the disease. It has been
labeled the National Alzheimer's Plan. To the president's
credit, he wants it to be a comprehensive approach to find
effective treatments for Alzheimer's and to help those already
afflicted with the disease. About 5.4 million Americans already
suffer from Alzheimer's or similar dementia. Hundreds of
thousands of new cases are diagnosed ever