[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 139 (Friday, September 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


               REAUTHORIZATION OF THE RYAN WHITE CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, it is fast approaching the time in this 
country when we will reauthorize a very important health care act known 
as the Ryan White Care Act. This act does tremendous amounts of good in 
terms of offering health care for those afflicted with this dreadful 
disease.
  We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Ackerman] for his efforts to raise the awareness of this body, as 
well as this country, as to the former testing practices of the CDC, 
and we also owe a debt of gratitude to him for making us aware of the 
failed policies of the ethicists that have advised the CDC, for over 
this past year we have been blindly testing mothers and children for 
this disease, without their knowledge, and when finding positive cases 
we have refused to identify those positive cases and offer treatment 
for both newborn children and their mothers, this all at the advice of 
a group of ethicists that told our CDC that this was an appropriate 
practice.
  The other disturbing thing about that is that the CDC thought it was 
an appropriate practice, that newborn children infected with a deadly 
virus and knowledge of that by our own Centers for Disease Control 
should not have the opportunity for the best treatment that we have 
available, and also their mothers should not have the knowledge or 
opportunity that they in fact could be treated, their quality of life 
could be prolonged, and complications arising from this disease could 
be prevented.
  That, however, has not been the full story of what has happened. 
Because of the awareness that has come to light through the efforts of 
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Ackerman], we will be proposing, with 
the new Ryan White authorization, an opportunity for children to have a 
future.

                              {time}  1245

  There is no place today where we have and can make an impact on the 
HIV epidemic in this country like that associated with women of 
reproductive age. Today the fastest growing segment in this epidemic is 
women in the reproductive age category. It is growing 8 times faster in 
this group than in any other group in our country.
  We also have the opportunity to truly impact newborn babies, because 
now we have a treatment that prevents, two-thirds of the time, 
infection in the baby from a woman who might be carrying the HIV virus.
  The opportunity that will be coming before us will be shadowed in 
many debates, a debate on confidentiality, a debate on the rights of 
women not to be tested, but the ultimate debate that will come about as 
we reauthorize Ryan White will be the debate of how we have handled 
this epidemic in our country. In 1981, the first case was diagnosed, 
and today we have 2.5 million people in our country with this virus. We 
should ask if we are proud of the job that this country has done in 
facing this disease, in the way that our Government agencies have 
handled the epidemic and their approach to it.
  But, most importantly, where we have an opportunity to make a 
difference, to prevent infection in newborn children, we should not 
shrink back from that. We should stand up and make the difference, the 
difference that not only will save several thousand babies' lives each 
year but also, in this time of scarce resources, will add a quarter of 
a billion dollars in saved health care costs just from testing mothers 
during their first trimester of pregnancy.
  It is my hope and my wish that we will step aside from the 
politically correct positions of our country and look at the real harm 
that this infection has caused, not to make callous judgments on those 
who have unfortunately acquired this disease but all work together to 
make a new and improved effort at making a difference, saving lives and 
controlling this epidemic.


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