LONDON, March 13 (UPI) -- British fantasy fiction author Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, has pledged $1 million for research into a cure for the illness.
The 59-year-old author of the popular Discworld series of novels has promised to donate the money to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, The Daily Mail reported Thursday.
"Part of me lives in a world of new age remedies and science, and some of the science is a little like voodoo, but science was never an exact science ...," Pratchett told dementia experts at the Trust's conference in Bristol.
"I intend to scream and harangue while there is time," he continued. "I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the cure comes along. There's nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with dementia will double within a generation. In most cases, alongside the sufferer you will find a spouse suffering as much. It is a shock to find out that funding for Alzheimer's research is just 3 percent of that to find cancer cures."
