Senator EAGLETON. Our next witness will be Mr. Nelson Cruikshank representing the National Council of Senior Citizens. I might say—and this would apply to all the witnesses that the prepared statement of each witness will, of course, be considered by the subcommittee and made a part of the record of these hearings. In the interest of time, I would be most appreciative if those witnesses who have a prepared statement, requiring longer than 10 minutes, to read would summarize or highlight the views contained in their statements, bearing in mind the statement in its entirety will be made a part of the record. Without any further comments, we will ask Mr. Nelson Cruikshank to come forward, representing the National Council of Senior Citizens. STATEMENT OF NELSON H. CRUIKSHANK, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SENIOR CITIZENS, ACCOMPANIED BY MISS DOROTHY MCCAMMAN Mr. CRUIKSHANK. Mr. Chairman, my name is Nelson H. Cruikshank. I am the president of the National Council of Senior Citizens. I am happy to be here and, with your permission, to be accompanied by our consultant, Miss Dorothy McCamman. I am here today as the representative of the more than 3 million members of the affiliated organizations of the National Council of Senior Citizens. I am also happy to note the interest in the work of this committee on the problems of the aged. It is heartening to older Americans everywhere to note that a committee-and if I may say so, a subcommittee headed by such a young Senator-is taking an interest in the problems, the serious problems that confront older Americans today. As you indicated in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, I will submit my full statement for the record; and while I believe I am talking on two bills, I think I can keep within the 10-minute time limit, understanding the pressures of time that you are operating under. The subject of the hearings today which you have called, research into the causes of aging in humans and the need to make available to the elderly nutritious meals at prices they can afford, are certainly among the top interests of the older Americans today. Certainly more intensive research and better nutrition are essential to elimination of the disabilities and ill health that are so often associated with the process of aging. The national council is wholeheartedly in support of your bill, S. 887, to provide the establishment of a National Institute of Gerontology as a part of the National Institutes of Health. This we feel is long overdue; and, at the same time, one of the best investments the country could make. The amounts invested in research on aging could be expected to yield untold dividends in improved health and greater self-reliance, conserving human resources as well as saving countless dollars now spent on medical care and long-term institutional care. Dr. Marott Sinex, who I note is another witness this morning, chairman of the department of biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, tells us that a single breakthrough in the delay of senile dementia might save over a billion dollars a year in addition to immeasurable human anguish that would be avoided. Yet we have barely begun the research that could lead to this breakthrough-that could provide solutions once we have learned why some individuals are old at 50 and others retain mental and physical vigor long after 80. As the full statement indicates and spells out in some detail, the existing efforts are woefully inadequate, and we note that there has been a gradual slippage in the budget figures, the amounts of money budgeted in this field. And when you take the absolute amounts and apply the effect of inflation to them, it amounts to about a 20-percent cutback in the amounts available for this important work. This at the time, as you noted in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, when the problems of the aging are increasing in amount and intensity. The sheer numbers alone in our growing aged population would point to an expansion in the training in gerontology and in the study; but in spite of the need for expansion, there has been a gradual decline. These are the important facts to be cited, I think, in this respect: In the decade 1960-70, the number of aged 65 and older increased at a faster rate than the younger segment of the population, a rise of over 21 percent as against a general expansion of 12 percent. Of the population over age 65, the oldest group grew at a faster rate than the younger elderly. Over the decade, the increase in those who had passed their 75th birthday was over 37 percent, almost three times the incerase of 13.1 percent for those aged 65 to 74. In the particularly distressed segment of this distressed segment of the population are the older women who already greatly outnumber the men 65 or over, because their number increased at an even faster rate than the men. At the present time in our population there are 139 women over 65 for every 100 men, a marked increase from the figures of a decade earlier. It is also noted that, in the studies of economic needs, this segment of the population increasing faster than any other is the one most depressed economically. So all of these problems are aggravated for this particular segment of our population. The administration opposed a special institute on the ground that it was a categorical approach focusing on the needs of the aged and their problems. We feel that while there are arguments against a categorical approach to these problems, that this is a kind of long-range, theoretical position to take, and when you insist, as the administration does, that these special studies and the need for a special institute is not acute because they are going to go into a broad across-the-board study of needs, it is but a way of putting off action that is needed right now in favor of some kind of idealistic across-the-board approach when the need is expanding greatly and is becoming more acute every day in this category, and our feeling is if you have a category of the population that can indicate such acute needs, there is an argument for a categorical approach at least until the time when the idealistic acrossthe-board approach is reached. We feel also that S. 1925, introduced by the chairman of this overall committee, Senator Williams, presents another useful approach. We would hope, therefore, that your subcommittee would be able to merge the features of the two bills and thus ease the process of enactment. Specifically, the seven-member Aging Research Commission to be established by S. 1925 might well be the advisory council proposed under S. 887, with its first charge an early report on an overall plan and research priorities. In conclusion, I would like to emphasize our support of these bills. May I emphasize them on a light note, Senator Eagleton? In recently talking to an old lady who was celebrating her 85th birthday and remarking that it was so wonderful that medical science had given her the gift of an additional 20 years of life, she replied with a snort that it would be great if medical science would add 20 years to the age between 39 and 40. This is a light note, but there is a strong element of truth in this because if the quality of life can be extended as well as the quantity of life, it would almost have that effect. Let me now turn to S. 1163, introduced by Senator Kennedy on March 10 of this year. We note that it has strong and broad bipartisan support of nearly 20 Senators. I am happy to note the cosponsors are Senators especially aware of the needs of our older people and actively working to improve their lot. To name just three: yourself, Senator Eagleton, Senator Church, chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, and Senator Williams, formerly chairman of that committee. I need not take your time to repeat all the documentation of the lowincome position of our older population that makes so essential a program of low-cost meals. Nor do I need to detail the success story of the demonstration programs that have been carried out over the last 3 years. I should like instead to concentrate on the reason for acting now to translate these experimental projects to a continuing national program to provide older people with low-cost meals, nutrition training, and opportunity for social contacts. We in the national council are perhaps as vocal as any other group in the country in pointing out the economic needs of the older people; but we are also aware that the economic needs are not the only needs. If we could meet today the economic needs of the older people, they would still be left with very serious nutritional needs, odd as that may seem; and they also would be left with very serious needs for social contacts and all that goes with it. The nutrition program meets part of this economic need. It meets it in two ways: It supplements the nutritional needs of the people who share in the meals that are provided. It supplements the economic needs of those who prepare the meals and those who are trained to prepare and serve the meals. And it meets a very important social need of people who too often eat their meals-and eating should be a social function as well as just a biological function-in loneliness and despair. This is not in my prepared statement, but I had the experience recently of talking to a very noted physician, the head of a very large hospital in New York, who found his own mother in a declining state of health. He gave her a series of examinations, only to his own surprise finding that she was actually suffering from malnutrition. Here was a woman with plenty of economic support, and a son that was able and willing to supplement this support, but he found that living alone as she was, she was just eating piecemeal and really not enjoying her meals. And the whole psychological environment in which she ate and the habits of eating that she was declining into were actually bringing about the marked evidences of malnutrition. He was shocked to find this in the case of his own mother. It also illustrates that this wole program is a combination of economic, nutritional, and social needs, which the bill is designed to meet. Now the administration is taking the position that their income strategy, so-called, is that if they can meet the income needs of the elderly, the rest of these needs, including housing and nutrition, will be solved. This is not true, we believe, and it is particularly not true because the income strategy, so-called, is largely confined to keeping pace with the rising cost of living, which leaves just as many people in deprivation as before the so-called income strategy is put into effect. Now we have had a good bit of experience in our senior AIDES program, working with the Meals on Wheels, with the FIND programs, and developing centers where these meals can be served. We find that they meet a very, very fundamental need of all of these kinds-social, economic, and nutritional-and we feel that a sufficient demonstration has now been established over the last 2 years and a little more to warrant the starting of a full-scale program. After all, what are demonstration projects for? The demonstration programs that have been conducted under senior AIDES we feel have demonstrated the need and the practical possibilities of meeting this need. Had they demonstrated the opposite, we would be ready to cut them off. But, without exception, and even to a more dramatic degree than we had anticipated, they have demonstrated the practicability of this. There is one possible change that we would like to emphasize. We support the idea that the people who carry on the program, who do the serving of the meals and all should be older people themselves, and we would like to suggest that those people of age 55 and over would be the ones that should be able actually to conduct this program. In the statement we make reference to the fact that there should be some change in the administrative structure, and in the light of our experience we feel that this program does not belong and cannot be made workable under the Department of Agriculture. And even though there has been a decline in influence and activity and impact of the Administration on Aging, we feel that this Administration on Aging should be the agency under whose auspices this program should be conducted. Again, with the permission to file a more complete statement, Mr. Chairman, I would conclude by recording our full and wholehearted support for both the measures to establish the Institute which gives the research so much needed, and to establish the going program of nutrition for the elderly. Thank you very much. (The prepared statement of Mr. Cruikshank follows:) Testimony of Nelson H. Cruikshank, President National Washington, D. C., 20006, before the Subcommittee on I am happy to be here today as the representative of more than 3,000,000 members of affiliated organizations of the National Council of Senior Citizens. Nothing could be of more immediate concern to our membership and to older Americans generally than the subjects of today's hearing, namely, research into the causes of aging in humans and the need to make available to the elderly nutritious meals at prices within their means. More intensive research and better nutrition are essential to elimination of the disabilities and ill health so often associated with growing old. The National Council of Senior Citizens lends its wholehearted support to S.887, the bill which you have introduced, Senator Eagleton, to provide for the establishment of a National Institute of Gerontology as a part of the National Institutes of Health. Establishment of an Institute of Gerontology, long overdue, represents one of the best investments this nation could make. Amounts invested in research on aging can be expected to yield untold dividends in improved health and greater self-reliance, conserving human resources as well as saving countless dollars now spent on medical care and long-term institutional care. Dr. Marrott Sinex, Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, tells us that a single breakthrough in the delay of senile dementia might save over a billion dollars a year in addition to immeasurable human anguish. Yet we have barely begun the research |