Terry Pratchett donates £500k to Alzheimer's charity

Battling the embuggerance

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Biology, 13th March 2008 09:59 GMT

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Terry Pratchett has announced he will donate £500,000 to the UK's Alzheimer's Research Trust, three months after he was diagnosed with a rare form of the disease.

The 59-year-old Discworld creator called the diagnosis "an embuggerance", and said it had provoked a "violently coherent fury that made the Miltonic Lucifer's rage against Heaven seem a bit miffed by comparison", according to Reuters.

Pratchett says on the Alzheimer's Research Trust website: "I have had Alzheimer’s now for the past two years plus. It's a nasty disease, surrounded by shadows and small, largely unseen tragedies.

"There's nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with the disease will double within a generation. It's a shock and a shame to find out that funding for research is three per cent of that which goes to find cancer cures."

In announcing his hefty donation, Pratchett added: "We need you and you need money. I'm giving you a million dollars. Spend it wisely."

The trust's chief exec, Rebecca Wood, said: "Research is the only way to beat this disease. The reality is we are scraping for every penny and have to turn down two out of every three research projects." ®

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