'Some Hope Is Better Than Having No Hope'

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2021

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the F.D.A. approved the drug Aduhelm, the first Alzheimer’s treatment to receive the agency’s endorsement in almost two decades, it gave hope to many. But the decision was contentious; some experts say there’s not enough evidence that the treatment can address cognitive symptoms. What is the story behind this new drug? Guest: Pam Belluck, a health and science writer for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is a Daily.
0:09.0	Today, the FDA recently shocked the world of medicine
0:14.0	when it approved a treatment for Alzheimer's
0:17.0	despite a fierce debate over whether the drug actually works.
0:24.0	I spoke with my colleague, Pam Bellock,
0:26.0	about the story behind that approval. And where exactly
0:31.0	it leaves Alzheimer's patients and their families?
0:35.0	It's Wednesday, July 7th.
0:56.0	I was at a talk one time and they were explaining to us what
1:01.0	Alzheimer's is like. And they were saying, think of it as
1:06.0	like you're going to a clerk at a desk who has some files.
1:12.0	And you go to them and you say, I need the file about X.
1:17.0	And they go and they open up the drawer and they pull out the file
1:21.0	and they bring it to you. And that's just the way the brain works,
1:24.0	you know, when you're trying to remember something.
1:27.0	And then normal aging is now the clerk's really old
1:32.0	and so it takes that person a while to walk over.
1:36.0	They take you, you know, that to figure out which cabinet it's in.
1:39.0	They finally find a folder and they bring it over to you.
1:42.0	But you, you know, you get it eventually.
1:46.0	And Alzheimer's is you go over to the file cabinet.
1:52.0	You open up the drawer and there's hardly any files in there.
	...

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