[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 91 (Friday, July 1, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7893-S7894]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CHILD SURVIVAL AND MATERNAL HEALTH

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, the Senate Appropriations Committee this 
week took an important step. That step was in providing $275 million to 
the Child Survival and Maternity Health Programs. I congratulate the 
full committee for this work. I also congratulate the subcommittee, 
chaired by Senator McConnell, and Ranking Member Leahy, for the bill 
they reported which contained this money. I want to use this occasion 
and the passage of this bill--in the future, it will be coming to the 
Senate floor with this language--to share some important statistics 
about child and maternal mortality.
  It is so very important that we understand what this money can do. I 
am often hesitant to recite statistics on the floor of the Senate 
because when you hear them repeatedly, it is all too easy to become 
numb to statistics, to forget the human realities that they do, in 
fact, represent.
  It is important for all of us and for the American people to listen 
to some of these statistics because they are so unbelievable and so 
tragic and because they do represent human lives. These are lives that 
can be saved, lives that can be saved by making resources available to 
developing countries and people who are in such great need. Let me 
recite some of these statistics.
  Today, over 10 million children under the age of 5 die each year from 
preventable and treatable diseases and ailments. These include 
diarrhea, pneumonia, measles, and, yes, malnutrition. It is an 
unbelievable figure. Of those 10 million deaths worldwide, 3.9 million 
occur in the first 28 days of life. These babies don't even have a shot 
at getting as old as 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. Yet two-thirds of these deaths 
could be prevented if available and affordable intervention had reached 
the children and their mothers who need them. Malnutrition contributes 
to 54 percent of all childhood deaths. As many as 3 million children 
die annually as a result of vitamin A deficiency. An estimated 400,000 
cases of childhood blindness are reported each year, children who are 
condemned to going about their lives blind. These are preventable. Of 
the 130 million babies born each year, about 4 million die in the first 
4 weeks of life. In poor communities many babies who die are unnamed, 
unrecorded, indicating the perceived inevitability of their deaths. 
Four hundred fifty newborn children die every hour, mainly from 
preventable causes.
  According to World Health Organization estimates, over 4.4 million 
children died from vaccine-preventable diseases in 2001, diseases such 
as hepatitis, polio, and tetanus. Of all the vaccine-preventable 
diseases, measles remain the leading childhood killer, claiming the 
lives of 745,000 children, more than half of them in Africa.
  Such staggering numbers of children dying from preventable diseases 
is unacceptable. It is up to us--the Congress, the Senate, people in 
the developed world, the United States, around the world--to change 
this tragic human reality. We have an obligation to make this change 
because we have the know-how, we have the resources to prevent these 
deaths.
  The Lancet, a British medical journal which ran a series of articles 
last year about child survival, just published a new study indicating 
that the lives of an estimated 6 million children could be saved for as 
little as $1.23 per child. Yes, for as little as $1.23 per child in the 
42 countries with the highest rates of child mortality, 23 lifesaving 
interventions could be made universally available. These interventions, 
many of them as basic as vitamin A or zinc supplements, are critical to 
preventing the deaths of millions of children.
  The full Appropriations Committee has agreed to provide this $275 
million for child survival in the Foreign Operations bill. This is very 
significant. It is an important step in our efforts to improve the 
health of children around the world. This funding will save lives. I 
urge my colleagues to support this funding level when the bill comes to 
the floor. I urge my colleagues, when the bill then goes to conference 
committee, to keep this funding in that bill as well.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S7894]]

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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