TEXT OF STORY

MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: More than $2 trillion. That's the projected cost of strokes in the US over the next 45 years. Some doctors want the government to put up more cash to halt what they are calling a potential epidemic. We get more from Helen Palmer with the Health Desk at WGBH.

---

HELEN PALMER: 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year. Doctors say smoking, diabetes, heart disease and obesity are all risk factors. And they're predicted to cause even more strokes as the population ages.

That's why some want the Government to channel more cash into the National Institutes of Health for research.

CATHERINE RYDELL: What we're asking for the NIH is an across-the-board 5% increase which would be about $1.4 billion

Catherine Rydell directs the American Academy of Neurology. She says Congress is proposing no increase in NIH appropriations next year.

Rydell notes that the most effective stroke treatment, clot-busting drug tPA, was largely developed with NIH funds.

In Boston, I'm Helen Palmer for Marketplace.