[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 22, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H2933-H2934]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           CELEBRATING TWO GREAT EVENTS OF HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House today to celebrate 2 
great events of human achievement that are both adjoined that we 
recently experienced, and those achievements are surrounding a fellow 
named Eric Lindberg

[[Page H2934]]

who is a constituent of mine from Indianola, Washington.
  Eric's grandfather was Charles Lindberg, and on May 1 this year, Eric 
took off from New York in his plane called the New Spirit of St. Louis, 
a Lancair Columbia 300, and flying alone, 19 hours later, landed, as 
his grandfather did, at Le Bourget Airport in Paris. A significant 
event of human achievement, as was his grandfather, Charles Lindberg's, 
when he took off in his Ryan N-X-211 and landed in Le Bourget after 33 
hours.
  This is something our Nation appropriately honors Eric for, his 
achievement in honoring his grandfather, in making a solo crossing of 
the North Atlantic in a single engine plane, and for that we honor 
Eric. We honor his spirit. We honor his achievement, but that is really 
only part of his story of human achievement, and it is only part of the 
reason that he flew across the North Atlantic.
  Because at age 21, and Eric is now 37, Eric started to develop 
rheumatoid arthritis that pretty well stove him in. It got so bad that 
a few years ago he really could not work or fly consistently. He had 
two artificial knee replacements, and he was having real significant 
problems, but he had some neighbors in the Puget Sound area working for 
a company called Immunex and those neighbors at the Immunex 
Corporation, who are now working with the Amgen Group, were working on 
a product they wanted to develop to help people with rheumatoid 
arthritis.
  After about $350 million of investment and thousands and thousands of 
man-hours of a lot of my constituents, some who live on Bainbridge 
Island where I live, they developed a product called Enbrel. It is a 
self-injected product. It is what is called a TNF inhibitor. It is a 
man-made protein, and it works with the immune system to reduce the 
onset of the symptoms associated with rheumatoid arthritis.
  About 2 years ago, Eric started to take Embro, and within 2 weeks he 
noticed a very significant change in his ability to walk around, get up 
and do the daily functions of life, and it allowed him, and he will 
tell my colleagues this because I talked to him today, it allowed him 
to train and work towards his goal of duplicating Charles Lindbergh's, 
his grandfather, flight across the Atlantic, which he successfully 
achieved on May 1.
  It really is a story of 2 great spirits of human achievement, one his 
individual, one flying across the Atlantic in a single engine plane, 
and two, a group, one of people harnessing the creative genius of this 
country to develop a product like Enbrel to help Eric train for this 
particular endeavor.
  So I would like to honor his achievement that he did; one, to 
recreate and celebrate the 75th anniversary of his grandfather's great 
achievement; two, to honor the future of medicine and to give a message 
of inspiration to the others tonight and today who may be having 
medical problems, who may be just an invention away of really getting a 
life change as Eric experienced.
  I know that he wants America to be inspired by the achievements of 
Immunex and his personal achievement so that we can go forward to 
harness this creative genius, not only in aeronautics but in 
biotechnology. As we go forward in a way to try to make drugs available 
to people at an affordable price, we hope that we can find a way also 
to inspire people to continue this creative effort that my other 
constituents who live in the Puget Sound area of Seattle, Bothell, 
where some of the labs are located, they can be honored as well.
  I may also note, too, Eric is associated with a group called the X 
Project which is a challenge project that has a $10 million reward for 
creative geniuses who can put 3 people in space with a privately funded 
vehicle and do it 2 weeks in a row, and we really appreciate his 
efforts to create an incentive to have a prize. As he told me, we have 
had great aeronautic advances either when we have a war or a prize and 
he is working to have this prize to give people some incentive to get 
privately into space.
  So, again, I want to really commend Eric for his tremendous personal 
achievement, my friends in Immunex for helping him to make that 
achievement, and I hope this inspiration will help others go forward.

                          ____________________