December 20, 2017 – Postage Stamp

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Anchor lead: A new postage stamp to support Alzheimer’s disease research has been released, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Would you pay about 10 cents more for a postage stamp that gives the extra postage collected to support Alzheimer’s disease research? That’s the hope of both the US Postal Service and Alzheimer’s disease researchers with the release of a new stamp known as a semi-postal. Constantine Lyketsos, an Alzheimer’s expert at Johns Hopkins, explains the strategy.

Lyketsos: The Alzheimer’s stamp is important for a couple of reasons. It’s going to raise funds for research. The price of the stamp is somewhat higher than the price of a first class mailing stamp. The difference is going to go directly to support Alzheimer’s disease research at the NIH. We need a lot more funds for Alzheimer’s research, hopefully we will get lots and lots of people out there contributing even by their own small amounts into this effort and therefore learning the importance or the need that we have.  :30

Right now the ‘semi-postal’ will only be available for two years, but Lyketsos and others are hopeful it may be extended. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.