if alternative ideas received little funding support, it was because NIH’s Alzheimer’s budget was woefully insufficient ($425 million in 2012, $2.4 billion in 2019)
low NIH funding for Alzheimer’s from the 1980s through the 2000s is to blame for alternative ideas languishing
This seems like a hollow excuse. AFAIK, NIH doesn't have a mandate to put a certain amount of funding towards one line of inquiry before funding another.