<text>  CNNI was deeply moved watching Julianne Moore win the Oscar for Still Alice, a movie I was proud and privileged to be an executive producer on. Julianne gives a harrowing performance as a brilliant 50-year-old college professor who loses her brain and herself to early-onset Alzheimers disease. This is a huge moment for Julianne -- and a huge moment for all of us who have been trying to focus public attention on this staggering disease. Witnessing Alzheimers progress on the big screen is as terrifying as it is in real life. I know, because Im a child of Alzheimers. The mind of my father, Sargent Shriver, had always been a finely tuned instrument that left people in awe and inspired. But my family and I watched Alzheimers erase that brain -- slowly, inexorably, completely. It was terrifying, too, because back then, the disease was surrounded by shame and silence. Alzheimers still carries a stigma of the unknown -- even though today more than 5 million Americans have it. Thats right. Every 67 seconds, another one of us develops Alzheimers. Women in their 60s are about twice as likely to develop Alzheimers as breast cancer. With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, there will be 13.5 million of us with Alzheimers by 2050. And many people dont understand that Alzheimers isnt a natural part of aging. Alzheimers is a disease that kills. The truth is, were right in the middle of an epidemic, but we as a nation are in denial. An Oscar for Still Alice is shining the brightest light yet on Alzheimers, but light isnt enough anymore. Attention isnt enough. Its time to get serious. Alzheimers is exerting a powerful impact on American families -- on our health, our finances, and our futures. And women are disproportionately affected. Why women? Back in 2010, when we published The Shriver Report: A Womans Nation Takes on Alzheimers, we reported that women were more than half the individuals diagnosed with Alzheimers and nearly two-thirds of the unpaid caregivers of those who had it. Now those numbers are far worse. Today nearly two-thirds of those with Alzheimers are women -- thats more than 3.2 million women. And more than 60 of caregivers for people with Alzheimers and dementia are women, with many having to reduce their own workload or even drop out of the workforce altogether to care for loved ones. Opinion: Why Still Alice is about you . Women are the epicenter of this crisis, which is why I believe they also have to be the solution. So, in partnership with the Alzheimers Association and so many inspiring women already working on the front lines to fight this disease, we have launched the Wipe Out Alzheimers Challenge, a multipronged campaign powered by womens brains. Our mission is to enlist women of all ages to get educated, engaged and empowered to instigate change. Women around the country will go out and raise the alarm, raise awareness, raise the stakes and raise millions of dollars to fund serious research into womens brains. And theres so much research to do and so many questions to answer. Why is the incidence of Alzheimers higher for women? Nobody knows. And why is it that women in their 60s are so much more likely to get Alzheimers than breast cancer? Nobody knows. Whats the exact role of estrogen? We dont know. Is there an Alzheimers connection with depression or with diabetes? What about genetics? What can be done during the 20 or so years when the disease develops, before a woman even becomes symptomatic? Whats the impact of diet, stress level, exercise, sleep and cardiovascular condition? Its time to find out. We have to fund this research, because for some reason its not a priority for the government. In 2015, Washington will spend an estimated 6 billion on cancer research and 3 billion on HIVAIDS research, but only 586 million on Alzheimers. Yet, as the Alzheimers Association tells us, the costs to all payers for the care of people living with Alzheimers disease and other dementias will total an estimated 226 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid paying 68 percent of the costs. I dont get it, but Im not going to wait anymore. So Wipe Out Alzheimers is stepping in. Were asking women to put together their own brain trusts in their communities -- groups that will go out and do some muscular fund-raising. But equally important, these brain trusts will gather to discuss and disseminate information about what the disease is and isnt. What are the warning signs we should look for in ourselves and our parents? Whats the difference between normal forgetfulness, dementia and Alzheimers disease? Can brain games or meditation slow cognitive decline? Do dietary supplements help? Local brain trust groups will also learn about the devastatingly high cost of Alzheimers -- how neither Medicare nor the Affordable Care Act covers long-term care, and the cost of a semiprivate nursing home room averages more than 80,000 a year. Theyll reach out to help and encourage women whose loved ones have Alzheimers. They will be politically engaged and encourage political candidates who support increased funding for Alzheimers research. Theyll push their own doctors to get better-educated about cognitive health. Its time for the narrative around Alzheimers to change. I remember when an HIVAIDS diagnosis was a death sentence. I remember when cancer was a dirty word, and the prognosis was always grim. But AIDS and cancer activists are helping to take these diseases from terrifying to treatable, from hopeless to hopeful. We want to do the same with Alzheimers. We want to understand it, prevent it, treat it and beat it. Wipe Out Alzheimers is creating a global community of women activists, agitators and agents of change to do just that. We used to think that the mysterious condition called Alzheimers disease happened only to folks in their 80s and 90s. Still Alice shows us thats just not true. The race for the Oscar may be over, but the race to wipe out Alzheimers is on. 