[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1128 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1128

  To establish the National Center on Liver Disease Research, and for 
                            other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 23, 2009

    Mr. Lynch (for himself and Mr. King of New York) introduced the 
   following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and 
                                Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To establish the National Center on Liver Disease Research, and for 
                            other purposes.

    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 ``Liver Research Enhancement Act of 
2009''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds as follows:
            (1) An estimated 30,000,000 people in the United States are 
        affected by a liver or liver-related disease.
            (2) In excess of $15,000,000,000 is spent annually to 
        provide medical care for people in the United States with 
        hepatitis C. This cost is projected to grow substantially over 
        the next decade without a vaccine, cure, or the discovery of 
        better treatments.
            (3) There are over 5,000,000 people in the United States 
        who are or have been infected with hepatitis C, 3,200,000 of 
        whom are chronically infected.
            (4) Due to limited research, current treatments for 
        hepatitis B and C are effective in approximately 50 percent of 
        the cases.
            (5) A vaccine has not been developed for hepatitis C.
            (6) There are 10,000 to 12,000 deaths each year due to 
        hepatitis C, and the annual death total is projected to triple 
        absent increased public health and research interventions.
            (7) Hepatitis C is the leading cause of death among people 
        co-infected with HIV.
            (8) Chronic hepatitis B and C affect over 6 million 
        Americans with nearly half of those individuals unaware of 
        their infection.
            (9) Chronic infection with hepatitis B or C is associated 
        with an increased incidence of primary liver cancer in the 
        United States, the fastest growing cancer in incidence, despite 
        a decline in most other types of cancers.
            (10) There are 1,400,000 people in the United States who 
        have been infected with hepatitis B, and 1 out of 4 individuals 
        with chronic hepatitis B will die prematurely from end-stage 
        liver disease or liver cancer.
            (11) One out of 10 Asian and Pacific-Islander Americans are 
        chronically infected with hepatitis B, and the Centers for 
        Disease Control and Prevention has reported a reduction in 
        long-term protection from the current hepatitis B vaccines.
            (12) It is estimated that as many as 20 percent of 
        Americans have fatty liver disease which can lead to cirrhosis 
        and liver failure.
            (13) There are 15,000 children hospitalized in the United 
        States each year due to liver disease.
            (14) The only option for many individuals with advanced or 
        chronic liver disease is a liver transplant.
            (15) Approximately 17,000 people in the United States are 
        on the waiting list for a liver transplant, but because of the 
        limited supply of livers available for transplantation, only 
        approximately 6,000 liver transplants are performed each year.
            (16) There are 1,300 people in the United States who die 
        each year waiting for a liver transplant.
            (17) To address the public health threat posed by liver 
        disease, there is a need for the establishment of a National 
        Center on Liver Disease Research to provide dedicated 
        scientific leadership, to create a research action plan, to 
        ensure the funding of the scientific opportunities identified 
        by the plan, and the coordination of efforts across the 
        institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health.

SEC. 3. NATIONAL CENTER ON LIVER DISEASE RESEARCH.

    Subpart 3 of part C of title IV of the Public Health Service Act 
(42 U.S.C. 285c, et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the 
following:

              ``national center on liver disease research

    ``Sec. 434B.  (a) Establishment.--There is established the National 
Center on Liver Disease Research (hereafter in this section referred to 
as the `Center') in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive 
and Kidney Diseases.
    ``(b) Director.--The Center shall be headed by a Director, who 
shall be appointed by the Director of the Institute, in consultation 
with the Director of NIH, from among individuals with the highest 
scientific credentials. The Director of the Center shall report 
directly to the Director of the Institute.
    ``(c) Duties.--To ensure the development of increased understanding 
of and better treatments and cures for liver disease through a 
dedicated scientific leadership and an adequate allocation of 
resources, the Director shall--
            ``(1) assist the Liver Disease Research Advisory Board to 
        develop the Liver Disease Research Action Plan; and
            ``(2) encourage and coordinate the implementation of the 
        Plan by the national research institutes, including by issuing 
        research solicitations and by using all other available 
        mechanisms.
    ``(d) Liver Disease Research Advisory Board.--
            ``(1) Establishment.--Not later than 90 days after the date 
        of the enactment of the Liver Research Enhancement Act of 2009, 
        the Director of NIH shall establish a board to be known as the 
        Liver Disease Research Advisory Board (hereafter in this 
        section referred to as the `Advisory Board').
            ``(2) Duties.--The Advisory Board shall advise and assist 
        the Director of the Center concerning matters relating to liver 
        disease research, including by developing and revising the 
        Liver Disease Research Action Plan in accordance with 
        subsection (e).
            ``(3) Voting members.--The Advisory Board shall be composed 
        of 18 voting members appointed by the Director of NIH, in 
        consultation with the Director of the Institute, of whom 12 
        shall be eminent scientists and 6 shall be lay persons. The 
        Director of NIH, in consultation with the Director of the 
        Institute, shall select 1 of the members to serve as the Chair 
        of the Advisory Board.
            ``(4) Ex officio members.--The Director of NIH shall 
        appoint each director of a national research institute that 
        funds liver disease research to serve as a nonvoting, ex 
        officio member of the Advisory Board. The Director of NIH shall 
        invite 1 representative of the Food and Drug Administration, 
        and 1 representative of the Department of Veterans Affairs, to 
        serve as a nonvoting, ex officio member of the Advisory Board. 
        Each ex officio member of the Advisory Board may appoint an 
        individual to serve as that member's representative on the 
        Advisory Board.
    ``(e) Liver Disease Research Action Plan.--
            ``(1) Development.--Not later than 15 months after the date 
        of the enactment of the Liver Research Enhancement Act of 2009, 
        the Advisory Board shall develop (with appropriate support from 
        the Director and staff of the Center) a comprehensive plan for 
        the conduct and support of liver disease research to be known 
        as the Liver Disease Research Action Plan. The Advisory Board 
        shall submit the Plan to the Director of NIH and the head of 
        each institute or center within the National Institutes of 
        Health that funds liver disease research.
            ``(2) Content.--The Liver Disease Research Action Plan 
        shall identify scientific opportunities and priorities of liver 
        disease research necessary to increase understanding of and to 
        prevent, cure, and develop better treatment protocols for liver 
        diseases.
            ``(3) Revision.--The Advisory Board shall revise the Liver 
        Disease Research Action Plan every 3 years, but shall meet 
        annually to review progress and to amend the Plan as may be 
        appropriate because of new scientific discoveries.
    ``(f) Allocation of Funds.--Subject to the availability of 
appropriations, the Director of each institute or center within the 
National Institutes of Health shall allocate to liver disease research 
through peer-reviewed methods, the amounts necessary to fund existing 
scientific research opportunities and, subject to completion and 
subsequent updates of the Liver Disease Research Action Plan, amounts 
adequate to carry out the recommendations of the Plan.''.
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