Advocates for those with Alzheimer’s disease and their families are stunned over the decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to deny coverage for an entire class of drugs to treat the disease.

Leslie Morrow is Executive Director of the Alzheimer’s Association of South Dakota….

Morrow says the draft decision says all future FDA approved treatments in this class of drugs will only be covered in clinical trials….

Morrow says access to clinical trials is greatly limited….

A year’s prescription to the first drug, Aduhelm costs about fifty thousand dollars.

Morrow says there are currently about eighteen thousand people in the state in some stage of Alzheimer’s disease.