Memory Problems, Alzheimer's Disease
In this video, William Summers spends about 26 minutes speaking on "Memory Problems, Alzheimer's Disease" at the 38th Annual Cancer Convention held on Labor Day weekend by the Cancer Control Society.
About William Summers
WILLIAM K. SUMMERS, M.D. graduated from Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis) in 1971, and trained in both Internal Medicine and Neuropsychiatry at Washington University. He has been on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Southern California, and the University of California Los Angeles. Dr. Summers has been in private medical practice since 1981, but has continued in academic pursuits. His 1986 benchmark publication in The New England Journal of Medicine on the use of tacrine (Cognex®) to treat Alzheimer’s disease revolutionized the field.
At the time it was thought impossible to treat Alzheimer’s disease. As is typical of unexpected innovation, he was subjected to intense FDA investigation. In 1989, the FDA declared a ‘mutual consent decree’ to the public. Today, there are five drugs in the antidementia field, with four of these based on Dr. Summers’ original hypothesis. Characteristic of autocratic bureaucracies, the FDA put Dr. Summers on a secret black list, which was removed after its discovery in 2006.
Dr. Summers has numerous awards, and is an international speaker. He has forty-eight papers in major medical journals. He has earned eight U.S. and international patents in pharmacology and health supplements. He is the inventor of Memory reVITALIZER®, A 35-component fullspectrum antioxidant blend which is derived from his revolutionary peer reviewed paper on the cause and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2004; 6:651-657).
In 1999, Dr. Summers founded the Alzheimer’s Corporation, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which features innovative dementia care, anti-aging medicine and markets Memory reVITALIZER®.
He may be contacted by phone 800-606-0192, fax 505-888-6000, website www.ALZcorp.com and e-mail [email protected].
Transcription
Well, we have much, much territory to cover. The title of the talk is, of course, help for memory problems and Alzheimer's. And want to give just a little bit of background here. And that's a little background on me. This is actually a review that I did for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, and it celebrated 100 years of Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's, of course, discovered his disease in 1986. It was a single case, 54 year old lady. For many years we thought that have Alzheimer's. She had to be under 65. If you were over 65, it was different disease. And we call that senile dementia. But it turns out that Alzheimer's been around since Roman days. It's been around in many, many different names and forms. Creutzfeldt-Jakob is probably something that's somewhat related in process, and we'll get into that in a second. But in 1986, I made a bold discovery. I was going through a nasty divorce. I hated golf. And, you know, so my hobby was to do neuroscience research. So I started pedaling around with a drug that I'd been playing with when I was at the University of Southern California and previously at the University of Pittsburgh. And did it out of private practice, a rather unusual thing to do. And I presented it to Monsanto the first 10 cases and said, gee, I have here something that showed definite improvement in nine out of 10 people. They said Ho-hum. Have we validated your parking yet? And I said, excuse me.
Nobody has ever shown data improving part of Alzheimer's before. Can you explain this as well? You know, the drug was synthesized in 1942 and therefore we can't patent it, so. But you could patent it. You could get what's called a used patent for an old thing. And I said, oh, I see. OK. So I went back, got a book called Patent It Yourself, did patent it myself. And then the adventure started. And in 1986, it was accepted as the lead article in the New England Journal of Medicine. And it came out on November 13th, the same time that President Reagan came out. And with the Alzheimer's Association, which I think about as much of as you guys think of the American Cancer Association. But the Alzheimer's Association had President Reagan declare November as Alzheimer's Month was a disaster for them because their entire lead was Alzheimer's. There's no possibility of ever getting better. There's no treatment. There's nothing. Send us money.
Send us your brain at the same time.
The publicity from the New England Journal article basically squashed out their story. And we've not gotten along sense.