WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama is crediting the late Nancy Reagan with spurring research into cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s.
He says no one understood the importance of pursuing potentially life-saving treatments than the former first lady. She was buried Friday alongside her husband at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. President Ronald Reagan died of Alzheimer’s in 2004.
In his weekly Saturday radio and Internet address, Obama says Mrs. Reagan was one of the first people he contacted after he signed an order to resume federal stem cell research, a cause she advocated following her husband’s diagnosis.
Obama says administration efforts to tailor health care to the individual and to better understand the human brain are possible because of Nancy Reagan’s tireless efforts.
Mrs. Reagan died Sunday. She was 94.