[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 100 (Thursday, July 27, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H7198-H7200]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT AND NIH FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Whitfield). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentlewoman from Maryland 
(Mrs. Morella) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I appear before this House in the hopes 
that we will make a resolution when we return from our district work 
period, a resolution that adds on to the commitment that we made in 
1994 to

[[Page H7199]]

recognize and fight back against domestic violence and sexual assault 
by passing the Violence Against Women Act as part of the Crime Bill. 
That is what happened in 1994.
  Now, over the past 5 years, over a billion dollars of Federal money 
has funded law enforcement training, shelters, counseling for victims, 
and prevention programs for batterers and children. With so little time 
left in the 106th Congress, we really must focus on reauthorizing the 
Violence Against Women Act. H.R. 1248, which I introduced, currently 
has 215 cosponsors, and it recently passed the Committee on the 
Judiciary by unanimous consent. Indeed, it should be considered in the 
full House just as soon as we return. The progress made by thousands of 
victims and advocates in every State and district could be in jeopardy 
if we do not.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to talk about the 
National Institutes of Health, which is in my district, and again the 
commitment that we in Congress have made to double the funding for the 
National Institutes of Health over a 5-year period.
  Over the last 6 years, we have been very fortunate to have the House 
appropriations subcommittee that deals with the National Institutes of 
Health chaired by my very good friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Porter), who will not be seeking reelection for the next Congress. We 
indeed will miss him, his support, his interest in the health and the 
welfare of our Nation's citizens, and his commitment to doubling the 
funding of NIH over 5 years.
  This objective, to which I am committed, to double this budget, began 
in 1998 when we successfully enacted a 15 percent increase in the NIH 
appropriation for fiscal year 1999. We succeeded again with another 15 
percent increase for fiscal year 2000. And we are now at the third step 
in achieving our goal of doubling the NIH budget by 2003. I urge the 
conference committee on the appropriations for the Labor HHS bill to 
continue this commitment and fund NIH $20.5 billion, which is the full 
15 percent increase of $2.7 billion. There is clearly no better time 
than now to recommit our pledge to doubling this funding.
  Recent analyses by the Congressional Budget Office shows that this 
year's budget surplus is a record surplus of $232 billion. This is a 
$53 billion increase from the April projection. And over the next 
decade the CBO expects the surplus to grow between $4.5 trillion and 
$5.7 trillion, significantly more than what was expected just 3 months 
ago.
  Mr. Speaker, Albert Einstein is quoted as having once said, ``The 
only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to ensure the 
unhindered development of the individual.'' As a political institution, 
we must do just that, to ensure the pursuit of science and unraveling 
the mysteries of mankind.

                              {time}  1915

  By way of science and knowledge, we are ensuring the unhindered 
development of the individual. The National Institutes of Health is a 
world renowned institution located in Montgomery County, Maryland. It 
is considered the leading force in mankind's continued war against all 
forms of cancer, HIV/AIDS, blindness, autoimmune diseases, mental 
illness, and so many life-threatening and debilitating diseases.
  I doubt if there is one person in this Congress whose life or family 
is not affected by a disease that depends on the research being funded 
by NIH.
  It is not by chance that the United States is the undisputed world 
leader in high-tech medical science and drug development. It is in 
large part because the Federal Government has made a commitment to fund 
basic biomedical research for over 50 years and create a strong 
partnership with the private sector to bring new life-saving treatments 
to patients throughout the world.
  The Federal commitment to biomedical, behavioral, and population-
based research is responsible for the continued development of an ever-
expanding base that has contributed to medical advances that have 
profoundly improved the length and the quality of life for all 
Americans.
  These are remarkable times, Mr. Speaker. Never before in the history 
of mankind have we experienced such an explosion of discoveries. 
Information gained from NIH research is revolutionizing the practice of 
medicine and the future direction of scientific inquiry.
  Recently, the international Human Genome Project partners and Celera 
Genomics Corporation jointly announced that they have completed a 
working draft assembly of the human genome. This is a truly significant 
milestone for science and medicine.
  For the first time in our history, researchers have available with 
just a few clicks on their computer the nearly 3.1 billion letters that 
make up the human instruction book. All of the sequence data produced 
by the publicly supported human genome project is deposited daily in 
GenBank, a freely available sequence database maintained by the NIH's 
National Center for Biotechnology Information.
  Public consortium centers produce far more sequence data than 
expected. In a matter of about 15 months, 22 billion bases, or letters, 
of raw sequence data was produced, providing seven-fold coverage of the 
human genome. As a result, the working draft is substantially closer to 
the ultimate finished form than the consortium expected at this stage.
  This is an NIH success story. Reaching this milestone is just the 
beginning. The project now turns more of its energy and resources to 
the development of tools to understand the instructions encoded in the 
billions of bases of DNA sequence. Alterations in our genes are 
responsible for an estimated 5,000 clearly hereditary diseases, such as 
Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis, and sickle-cell anemia.
  They are also believed to influence the development of thousands of 
others more common diseases, such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's 
disease, cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.
  As a result, decoding this information is expected to lead to 
powerful new ways to prevent, diagnose, treat and cure disease. This 
will occupy the time and energy of biomedical scientists for decades to 
come.
  When will there be a better time to invest in biomedical research 
than now? I do not know of one.
  Yesterday, July 26, 2000, was the 10th anniversary of the Americans 
With Disabilities Act. Fifty-four million Americans have a disability. 
That is 20 percent of our population.
  We have a dire need in this country to focus our efforts on the 
health of our citizens. The number of Americans over age 65 will double 
in the next 30 years to more than 69 million. A significant portion 
will develop some form of a disability.
  Research is needed. It is needed to help reduce the enormous economic 
and social burdens that are posed by chronic diseases such as 
osteoporosis, arthritis, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's disease, cancer, 
heart disease, and stroke.
  With so many of these diseases that are debilitating or life-
threatening, we are so close, so close to the finish line in finding a 
cure and being able to provide for a treatment or a cure. We now talk 
of finding cures for so many diseases in 5 years in our lifetime.
  NIH-funded research enter many of these diseases, and that is the 
foundation underlying the search for answers. Without the essential 
role that the NIH is playing in our health care equation, we as a 
Nation will fail to achieve the goal of a healthier, more productive 
Nation.
  The American people want increased funding for medical research. Many 
polls have shown that the majority of Americans support Federal 
investment in medical research. With this research, we have learned 
that disease is a complex and evolving enemy.
  Despite the extraordinary progress that has been made in the fight 
against many diseases, serious challenges still exist. I want to 
mention several examples of a new preventive strategy against disease 
which is changing the lives of millions of Americans.
  This month, NIH announced a new clinical trial of 10 research centers 
which will soon begin testing a promising technique for transplanting 
insulin-producing pancreas cells that may one day allow people with 
type-one diabetes to stop their insulin shots.
  This year a team of researchers funded by the National Institute of 
Child Health and Human Development has found that infants who die of 
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome suffer from abnormalities in certain 
regions of the brain stem. This brings us closer to

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finding a preventive treatment for SIDS.
  In a ground-breaking, NIH-funded study published in the July issue of 
the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers 
rapidly restored lost vision in a mouse model of Leber's. Leber's is a 
group of severe, early-onset, retinal degenerative diseases causing 
rapid vision loss at birth or during very early childhood.
  This finding represents the first time researchers have restored 
vision in an animal model of retinal degeneration. The researchers are 
now moving toward doing human clinical trials.
  Mr. Speaker, scientific advances resulting from NIH-supported 
research mean improved health and reduced suffering, job creation, 
biomedical research, and biotechnology, and far-reaching economic 
benefits touching every State through major universities, government 
laboratories, and research institutes.
  In global competition, biomedical research and biotechnology are 
areas of strong American leadership and commitment. Continued support 
for the National Institutes of Health will ensure that American 
scientific excellence continues as we move through this century. We can 
afford to do no less for this generation and for generations to come.
  I urge my colleagues to continue with our objective of doubling the 
budget for the National Institutes of Health.

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