[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 731 Introduced in House (IH)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 731

   To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a five-year 
     schedule to double, relative to fiscal year 1999, the amount 
              appropriated for the National Eye Institute.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 11, 1999

 Mrs. Mink of Hawaii introduced the following bill; which was referred 
                      to the Committee on Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a five-year 
     schedule to double, relative to fiscal year 1999, the amount 
              appropriated for the National Eye Institute.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``National Eye Institute Authorization 
Act of 1999''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds that--
            (1) 80,000,000 Americans are at risk of developing diseases 
        that potentially can cause blindness;
            (2) 12,000,000 Americans have some degree of uncorrected 
        visual impairment;
            (3) 1,100,000 Americans are legally blind;
            (4) the annual direct and indirect cost of health care in 
        the United States for eye and vision disorders is 
        $42,000,000,000;
            (5) age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading 
        cause of blindness in individuals over age 65;
            (6) of the 34,000,000 Americans over age 65, 1,700,000 have 
        visual impairment that resulted from AMD;
            (7) AMD is expected to become an even greater public health 
        problem as the number of Americans over age 65 increases 
        dramatically over the next 30 years;
            (8) diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness 
        among individuals in the age group 20 to 74, accounting for 
        24,000 new cases of blindness each year;
            (9) glaucoma, another leading cause of blindness, has 
        caused 120,000 individuals in the United States to become 
        blind;
            (10) it is estimated that, of individuals in the United 
        States with glaucoma, only about 50 percent are aware that they 
        have the disease;
            (11) more than 6,000,000 Americans suffer from retinal 
        degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, macular 
        degeneration, Usher syndrome, and Stargardt disease; and
            (12) retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration, Usher 
        syndrome and Stargardt disease are inherited diseases, and the 
        number of individuals who suffer from these diseases will 
        increase dramatically.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR NATIONAL EYE INSTITUTE; 
              FIVE-YEAR SCHEDULE FOR DOUBLING OF APPROPRIATIONS 
              RELATIVE TO FISCAL YEAR 1999.

    Subpart 9 of part C of title IV of the Public Health Service Act 
(42 U.S.C. 285i et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following 
section:

                   ``authorization of appropriations

    ``Sec. 456A. For the purpose of carrying out this subpart, there 
are authorized to be appropriated $395,857,000 for fiscal year 1999, 
$474,857,000 for fiscal year 2000, $553,857,000 for fiscal year 2001, 
$632,857,000 for fiscal year 2002, $711,857,000 for fiscal year 2003, 
and $791,714,000 for fiscal year 2004.''.
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