[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 14, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1370-S1371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    RECOGNIZING AMERICAN HEART MONTH

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I want to talk about two items today. 
The first deals with February being American Heart Month. Let me 
describe my interest in this issue.
  Today, of course, is Valentine's Day. Most of us will receive some 
kind of valentine from someone that has a red heart on it and describes 
love and affection. It is a wonderful day for all of us.
  The other symbol is the human heart, which is a symbol that relates 
to the American Heart Association, an organization I have worked with a 
great deal. And also, as I said, this is American Heart Month.
  Robert Benchley once said: ``As for me, except for an occasional 
heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did,'' describing, of course, 
the devastation of the cardiac problems that people who suffer from 
heart disease have.
  I want to talk, just for a moment, about that because we need to 
continue every day in every way to deal with this killer in our 
country. Heart disease is this country's number 1 killer. It is the 
leading cause of disability and the leading cause of death in our 
country.
  Forty-one percent of the deaths in our country each year are caused 
by heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases, more than the next 
six leading causes of death combined. Cardiovascular disease and heart 
disease kill more women than the next 14 causes of death combined each 
year. That is 5.5 times more deaths than are caused by breast cancer.

  How can we help fight heart disease? All of us work on a wide range 
of issues. I am very concerned about a wide range of diseases. I have 
held hearings on breast cancer in North Dakota. I have worked on 
diabetes especially with respect to Native Americans. But heart disease 
is a special passion for me. I lost a beautiful young daughter to heart 
disease some years ago, and I have another daughter who has a heart 
defect. I spend some amount of time visiting with cardiologists and 
visiting Children's Hospital talking about the human heart.
  We know there is much more to be learned about heart disease. There 
is breathtaking and exciting research going on at the National 
Institutes of Health dealing with heart disease. I have been to the NIH 
and visited the researchers. What is happening there is remarkable. 
Congress is dramatically increasing the funding for research dealing 
with a wide range of diseases and inquiry into diseases at the National 
Institutes of Health. We have gone from $12 billion now to over $20 
billion, and we are on a path to go to $24 billion in research at the 
National Institutes of Health.
  I am pleased to have been one of those who stimulated that increase 
in the investment and research to uncover the mysteries of disease. To 
find ways to cure diseases and to prevent diseases--heart disease, 
cancer, so much more--is a remarkable undertaking, an outstanding and 
important investment for the country. How can we, however, as a 
Congress provide some focus to this issue of heart disease?
  We have a Congressional Heart and Stroke Coalition that we founded in 
1996. I am a co-chairman of that in the Senate and Senator Frist, who 
is a former heart transplant surgeon, is the other co-chair. We have 
two co-chairs in the House of Representatives as well. We are active in 
a wide range of areas dealing with the issue of heart disease.
  More than 600 Americans die every single day from cardiac arrest. 
That is the equivalent of two large jet airline crashes a day. But it 
is not headlines every day because it happens all the time, day after 
day, every day.
  There is some good news, and that is that cardiac arrest can be 
reversed in a number of victims if it is treated within minutes by an 
electric shock. There is now something called an automatic external 
defibrillator, AED. The AEDs, which we have all seen on television 
programs where they are applying a shock to someone to restart their 
heart, used to be very large machines. Now they are portable, the size 
of a briefcase, easily usable by almost anyone, even myself. I was in 
Fargo, North Dakota, one day with the Fargo-Moorhead ambulance crew, 
and the emergency folks use these defibrillators, the portable 
briefcase size defibrillator. They showed me how to hook it up and how 
to use it.
  Without having any experience at all, someone off the street can just 
hook up one of these portable defibrillators and use it without mistake 
or error to save lives. The question is, how can we now make these 
portable defibrillators easily accessible in public buildings all 
around the country, and other areas of public access, so they're 
available to help save lives when someone has a sudden cardiac arrest? 
That is what we are working on.
  We have passed legislation to try to make these available in 
airplanes. We have passed legislation to try to move them around to 
make them available in public buildings. We should do much more than 
that. They are affordable, easy to use, and can save lives. We ought to 
have these new portable defibrillators as common pieces of safety 
equipment in public buildings like fire extinguishers are now. It is 
achievable, and it is something we should do.

  We also need to find ways to do more cholesterol screening. That also 
relates

[[Page S1371]]

very much to cardiovascular disease. We know the identification of one 
of the major changeable risk factors for cardiovascular disease--that 
is, high levels of cholesterol--is not covered by Medicare. Clearly, we 
ought to cover those kinds of screenings under Medicare.
  The American Heart Association recommends that all Americans over the 
age of 20 receive cholesterol screening at least once every five years. 
But when an American turns 65 and enters the Medicare program, their 
coverage for cholesterol screenings stops. That makes no sense. We have 
tried in recent years to improve the Medicare coverage of preventive 
services. We now cover screenings for breast, cervical, colorectal and 
prostate cancer, testing for loss of bone mass, diabetes monitoring, 
vaccinations for the flu, pneumonia, and hepatitis B. Now we must 
provide Medicare coverage for cholesterol screenings as well.
  I intend to introduce legislation that would add this important 
benefit to the menu of preventive services already covered by Medicare. 
I have just mentioned also the substantial amount of new research going 
on at the National Institutes of Health.
  I confess that my passion about this issue comes from my family's 
experience--in the first case, a tragic experience. In the second case, 
we hope for an experience that will show us the miracles of research 
that are coming from the National Institutes of Health that provide new 
treatments and new remedies and new cures for some of these illnesses, 
including heart disease. We hope this will offer my family good news in 
the future; not just my family, every family. Every family is touched 
and is acquainted in some way with this issue of heart disease. As I 
indicated, it is America's number 1 killer.
  I have been pleased to work with the American Heart Association, a 
wonderful organization of volunteers all across this country that does 
extraordinary work. I will continue to work with them and work with the 
heart and stroke coalition in the Congress to see if we can't continue 
to make progress in battling this dreaded disease that takes so many 
lives in our country.

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