[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 148 (Tuesday, October 2, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H11078-H11081]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AWARDING A CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL TO MICHAEL ELLIS DeBAKEY, M.D.
Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and
pass the Senate bill (S. 474) to award a congressional gold medal to
Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.
The Clerk read the title of the Senate bill.
The text of the Senate bill is as follows:
S. 474
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D., was born on September 7,
1908, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Shaker and Raheeja
DeBakey.
(2) Dr. DeBakey, at the age of 23 and still a medical
student, reported a major invention, a roller pump for blood
transfusions, which later became a major component of the
heart-lung machine used in the first successful open-heart
operation.
(3) Even though Dr. DeBakey had already achieved a national
reputation as an authority on vascular disease and had a
promising career as a surgeon and teacher, he volunteered for
military service during World War II, joining the Surgeon
General's staff and rising to the rank of Colonel and Chief
of the Surgical Consultants Division.
(4) As a result of this first-hand knowledge of military
service, Dr. DeBakey made numerous recommendations for the
proper staged management of war wounds, which led to the
development of mobile army surgical hospitals or ``MASH''
units, and earned Dr. DeBakey the Legion of Merit in 1945.
(5) After the war, Dr. DeBakey proposed the systematic
medical follow-up of veterans and recommended the creation of
specialized medical centers in different areas of the United
States to treat wounded military personnel returning from
war, and from this recommendation evolved the Veterans
Affairs Medical Center System and the establishment of the
Commission on Veterans Medical Problems of the National
Research Council.
(6) In 1948, Dr. DeBakey joined the Baylor University
College of Medicine, where he developed the first surgical
residency program in the city of Houston, and today, guided
by Dr. DeBakey's vision, the College is one of the most
respected health science centers in the Nation.
(7) In 1953, Dr. DeBakey performed the first successful
procedures to treat patients who suffered aneurysms leading
to severe strokes, and he later developed a series of
innovative surgical techniques for the treatment of aneurysms
enabling thousands of lives to be saved in the years ahead.
(8) In 1964, Dr. DeBakey triggered the most explosive era
in modern cardiac surgery, when he performed the first
successful coronary bypass, once again paving the way for
surgeons worldwide to offer hope to thousands of patients who
might otherwise succumb to heart disease.
(9) Two years later, Dr. DeBakey made medical history
again, when he was the first to successfully use a partial
artificial heart to solve the problems of a patient who could
not be weaned from a heart-lung machine following open-heart
surgery.
(10) In 1968, Dr. DeBakey supervised the first successful
multi-organ transplant, in which a heart, both kidneys, and
lung were transplanted from a single donor into 4 separate
recipients.
(11) In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Dr.
DeBakey to the position of Chairman of the President's
Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke, leading to
the creation of Regional Medical Programs established ``to
encourage and assist in the establishment of regional
cooperative arrangements among medical schools, research
institutions, and hospitals, for research and training''.
(12) In the mid-1960s, Dr. DeBakey pioneered the field of
telemedicine with the first demonstration of open-heart
surgery to be transmitted overseas by satellite.
(13) In 1969, Dr. DeBakey was elected the first President
of Baylor College of Medicine.
(14) In 1969, President Lyndon B. Johnson bestowed on Dr.
DeBakey the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction,
and in 1985, President Ronald Reagan conferred on him the
National Medal of Science.
(15) Working with NASA engineers, he refined existing
technology to create the DeBakey Ventricular Assist Device,
one-tenth the size of current versions, which may eliminate
the need for heart transplantation in some patients.
SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.
(a) Presentation Authorized.--The Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate
shall make appropriate arrangements for the presentation, on
behalf of the Congress, of a gold medal of appropriate
design, to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D., in recognition of his
many outstanding contributions to the Nation.
(b) Design and Striking.--For purposes of the presentation
referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury
(referred to in this Act as the ``Secretary'') shall strike a
gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions
to be determined by the Secretary.
SEC. 3. DUPLICATE MEDALS.
The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of
the gold medal struck pursuant to section 2 under such
regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, at a price
sufficient to cover the cost thereof, including labor,
materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses, and
the cost of the gold medal.
SEC. 4. STATUS OF MEDALS.
(a) National Medals.--The medals struck pursuant to this
Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title
31, United States Code.
(b) Numismatic Items.--For purposes of sections 5134 and
5136 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck under
this Act shall be considered to be numismatic items.
SEC. 5. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF SALE.
(a) Authority To Use Fund Amounts.--There is authorized to
be charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise
Fund such amounts as may be necessary to pay for the costs of
the medals struck pursuant to this Act.
(b) Proceeds of Sale.--Amounts received from the sale of
duplicate bronze medals authorized under section 3 shall be
deposited into the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Al Green) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green).
General Leave
Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend
their remarks and to include extraneous material on S. 474.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, today we take the final steps in the legislative process
to accord the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey a Congressional Gold
Medal.
While I am proud to be here at the revelation of this process while
we are now revealing all that has taken place and all that has happened
for us to have this great opportunity, I must confess that I was not
there at the genesis of the process. But, Mr. Speaker, there is one
person who has been a constant throughout the entirety of this process,
and that one person, Mr. Speaker, is the Honorable Kay Bailey
Hutchison, Senator from the great State of Texas. She has been
consistent in that she has annually filed this bill to get it to this
point, and she has been persistent in that she has insisted that we
work together so as to cause the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey to
have this opportunity.
Mr. Speaker, while I am the original sponsor of the House bill, H.R.
1154, to accord this Congressional Gold Medal, there are many other
persons who must be thanked. I want to thank my chairman of the
Financial Services Committee, the Honorable Barney
[[Page H11079]]
Frank, for the outstanding job that he has done to help get this piece
of legislation, the bill that has already passed, out of the committee
and to the floor. But he has also done an outstanding job in helping us
to get the Senate bill to the floor, and for this we thank him.
I also would like to thank my colleagues Congressman Michael Burgess
and Congressman John Culberson for the outstanding job that the two of
them jointly performed in getting the necessary signatures to get this
bill to the floor.
{time} 1030
That would be the bill in the House, not the Senate bill. But I want
to thank them for what they did because it took getting the House bill
through to get us to the point where we can now get the Senate bill
passed, such that we can accord the Gold Medal.
I would like to thank the entire Texas delegation. They have all
thought highly of Dr. DeBakey, and they have worked with us to make
sure that we were in a position to get this done.
We want to thank the 313 cosponsors of this legislation. Literally,
we have gone to the floor of the House and we have talked to persons
who agreed that the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey should be accorded
this preeminent privilege and this great honor.
I want to thank the House leadership because the leadership made it
possible for the fellowship to be in this position today. And again, we
thank Senator Hutchison and all of the Members of the Senate who have
helped us with this process.
Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Gold Medal has 535 judges, 100 in the
Senate, 435 in the House, because each Member of the House and each
Member of the Senate has a vote on the Congressional Gold Medal. And I
am honored to say that, while we must receive 290 votes in the House
and 67 votes in the Senate, we have exceeded the required numbers in
both the House and the Senate. People were excited about the
opportunity to accord the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey a
Congressional Gold Medal.
What is a Congressional Gold Medal? It is the Nation's highest and
most distinguished civilian award. It was originally awarded to
military leaders for their service and later became a civilian medal.
It is the congressional equivalent of the Presidential Medal of
Freedom. Each medal is unique. It is designed by the U.S. Mint and is
duplicated in bronze for sale.
The Congressional Gold Medal has been awarded approximately 134 times
to approximately 300 individuals. Some notable recipients include our
first President, George Washington; General Andrew Jackson; the Wright
brothers; Thomas Edison; Sam Rayburn, former Speaker of this august
body; Sir Winston Churchill; Robert Kennedy; Lady Bird Johnson; Mother
Teresa of India; Nelson Mandela; Rosa Parks; Pope John Paul, II; the
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King; and the last
recipients were the Tuskegee Airmen. I was honored to be present in the
rotunda when they received their Congressional Gold Medal in April of
2006.
Mr. Speaker, I think that Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the oldest of five
children, born of parents of Lebanese descent, has truly been an
outstanding American. He was born in Louisiana in Lake Charles,
performed his residency at Charity Hospital. Mr. Speaker, I am from
Louisiana. I was born in New Orleans. I was born in Charity Hospital.
And while it may be a bit of wishful thinking, there may be the
possibility, or the possibility may exist, that I am a DeBakey baby and
that he was performing his residency at Charity Hospital at the time
that I was born.
Mr. Speaker, he was on the faculty of the Baylor College of Medicine
from 1948 to 1993, where he chaired the Department of Surgery. He
served as President and Chancellor of the Baylor College of Medicine.
And Mr. Speaker, I say from the bottom of my heart that I thank God
for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. He has earned the right to
receive a Congressional Gold Medal. He served his country in World War
II, and he volunteered to perform this service. He helped to develop,
while in the military, the mobile army surgical hospital, we know it as
the ``MASH'' units. And Mr. Speaker, there is a TV program and a movie
that was made popular because of the MASH units that were developed
because of the Honorable Michael E. DeBakey. In fact, it may be said
that, but for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, there might not be
a MASH television series.
He helped to establish the VA Hospitals. He helped to establish the
current Veterans Affairs medical system. He was one of the first to
successfully perform a coronary bypass. He established the field of
surgery for strokes. He led the movement to establish the National
Library of Medicine. He performed the historic transplantation
procedure, with a team of surgeons of course. He was the first person
to successfully use a partial artificial heart to help patients who
could not be weaned from the heart-lung machine following heart
surgery.
He pioneered the field of telemedicine, with the first demonstration
of open heart surgery transmitted overseas via satellite. He invented
the Dacron tube, using his wife's sewing machine and fabric he
purchased from a store in Houston, Texas. This, Mr. Speaker, was the
first artificial artery.
He was a leader in the development of the artificial heart. He
operated on more than 60,000 patients in Houston. He has published over
1,600 articles. He helped to establish health care systems around the
world in Jordan, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, to name a few
countries.
He became one of the persons to work at the Baylor School of
Medicine, to the extent that Baylor has recognized his unprecedented
achievements by naming the DeBakey Heart Center in his honor. And also,
the Baylor College of Medicine has named the Michael E. DeBakey
Department of Surgery in his honor.
Dr. DeBakey is a great citizen, Mr. Speaker, not only of the United
States but also of the world. He is a great humanitarian; he has helped
rich and poor alike. If we did not have the Congressional Gold Medal,
Mr. Speaker, we would have to create one for the Honorable Dr. Michael
E. DeBakey.
On his 99th birthday, we called him to let him know that we had
completed the process in the House in terms of passing the House bill
so that we can move forward to this bill, and his comment was, ``I am
so grateful that I am a citizen of the United States.'' Mr. Speaker, I
believe that his life stands for the proposition that one person can
not only impact the world, but can change the world for the good of
all.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield such
time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas, one of the original
cosponsors of this bill, Mr. Culberson.
Mr. CULBERSON. Thank you, Dr. Burgess.
I want to thank my good friend, Al Green, my good friend and
colleague, Michael Burgess, Senator Hutchison, who has been a leader in
this effort, and the chairman of the Financial Services Committee as
well in bringing this important legislation to the floor. Chairman
Frank has been extraordinarily helpful.
I won't be long, but I want to point out that Dr. Michael E. DeBakey
is one of those singular geniuses whose name will truly be remembered
in a thousand years when our work here today is long forgotten. What we
do here we hope will impact the lives of our children and fellow
Americans in ways that will improve their lives, and we all do our best
every day to make that contribution, but Dr. Michael DeBakey has
genuinely made contributions that will last for many, many generations
and will continue to save lives for many generations.
Dr. DeBakey is an inventive genius. He is not only a physician, he is
an engineer, an innovator, a surgeon, an educator, and the impact that
he has had on medicine truly cannot be overstated.
Many of the medical procedures we rely on today would truly not be
available were it not for his groundbreaking efforts. He is responsible
for pioneering four different types of operations for the treatment of
aneurysms in the heart, and the first physician to successfully perform
bypass surgery.
Dr. Michael DeBakey's contributions are too numerous to mention here.
We have had the privilege of bringing the House bill to the floor here
within the last couple of weeks, and are very
[[Page H11080]]
pleased that Chairman Frank has brought Senator Hutchison's bill to the
floor so that we can speed this important legislation to the
President's desk. Dr. DeBakey is now 99 years old, still in good
health, still consulting as a physician in medical cases. The man is
truly a legend. And it is my singular privilege to be here today to
join with my colleagues, Al Green, Dr. Burgess and Senator Hutchison,
in recognizing and honoring this great, good man for his magnificent
contributions to the improvement of the health of all humanity in
awarding Dr. Michael DeBakey the Congressional Gold Medal.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield such time as he
may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).
Mr. POE. Thank you, Dr. Burgess. And thank you, Judge Green, for
sponsoring this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, Dr. Michael DeBakey's life motto is ``strive for nothing
less than excellence,'' and he has achieved excellence in all of his 99
years.
He will be 100 years old next year, and he has made remarkable and
valuable contributions to surgery and to the entire world in the area
of heart surgery.
When he was only 23 years old, Dr. DeBakey reported the roller pump
for blood transfusions, which was later used in the heart-lung machine
used in the first successful open heart surgery. When he volunteered
for the Army during World War II, his experience in the Surgeon
General's staff taught him that more needed to be done for veterans and
for the wounded that are on the battlefield. He recommended massive
changes in the management of war wounds. And as Judge Green mentioned,
he invented the mobile army surgical hospital, or the MASH units, as
Americans know them. We have all watched MASH on television and its
satire, but MASH has served a tremendous purpose for those who are
wounded on the battlefield.
Once the MASH units came into play, Americans wounded during battle
at war and were taken to these units, the survival rate increased
tremendously. In previous wars when Americans were wounded, most of
them died. Now, when they're wounded and taken to a MASH unit, most of
them survive.
He created the medical follow-ups for veterans. We call that the
Veterans Affairs Medical Center. And in 1948, Dr. DeBakey joined the
Baylor University College of Medicine staff. He launched the first
surgical residency program in Houston, and now Baylor Medical School is
one of the Nation's most respected health science centers in the world.
He developed innovative treatments for aneurysms, performed the first
successful coronary bypass, successfully used a partial artificial
heart to help a patient wean off a heart-lung machine after open heart
surgery, and he supervised the first successful multiorgan transplant.
Dr. DeBakey could be, Mr. Speaker, the finest heart surgeon that has
ever lived in the world. He deserves this Nation's greatest honor. And
we're forever grateful for his contributions, his vision, his
leadership and his big heart for others.
Winston Churchill said, ``We live by what we get, but we judge our
life by what we give.'' Dr. DeBakey has given hearts to thousands of
people throughout the world.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I do want to thank my friends who have come to the floor
to help us today honor Dr. Michael DeBakey. I do want to thank Al Green
for his persistence in getting this bill to the floor. It has been a
long time in the making. And obviously I want to thank our senior
Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and certainly thank Chairman
Frank for allowing the Senate bill to come through the floor procedure
so that we may hasten this floor process for Dr. DeBakey. As has been
mentioned here several times this morning, Dr. DeBakey is 99 years old
and certainly deserving of this honor, and we need to get it to him
with all haste.
Dr. DeBakey is the father of cardiovascular surgery in our country.
And I do encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of S. 474, a bill to
designate the Congressional Gold Medal for the famed Houston heart
surgeon.
{time} 1045
This bill has been very important to me, as one of the physicians in
the House of Representatives, to be able today to come to the floor and
talk about how Dr. DeBakey changed the face of medicine so
significantly forever in this country. As a fellow physician, Dr.
DeBakey's work on medical advancements is legendary. His dedication to
healing those around him came not only from his talents as a physician
but his ongoing commitment to the larger medical community. His motto,
as we heard others mention it today, was ``strive for nothing less than
excellence.'' Boy, every Member of this House could adopt that as one
of our mottos and do better by the country for it.
Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the education and
entrepreneurial spirit that made him worthy of the Nation's highest
expression of appreciation for distinguished achievements and
contributions. Dr. DeBakey received his bachelor's and M.D. degree from
Tulane University in New Orleans, as we have already heard mentioned.
He delivered Al Green in medical school.
But probably more importantly, while in medical school, he developed
the roller pump, later to become the major component in the heart-lung
machine that is used in open heart surgery routinely today. This was a
groundbreaking achievement, Mr. Speaker. Every pump to pump the heart,
to take over the work of the heart artificially, prior to that time,
had worked on a mechanical piston-type arrangement. Dr. DeBakey
envisioned the roller pump which preserved the structure of red blood
cells as they took their course through the pump and allowed this pump
to, in fact, become part and parcel with something that we now just all
accept as part of cardiovascular surgery. It was truly a visionary
change. Again, he popularized that while he was in medical school in
the 1930s.
Now, Dr. DeBakey completed his internship at Charity Hospital, one of
the venerable institutions of learning in this country. Many of my
professors at Parkman Hospital trained at Charity Hospital. Charity
Hospital is no longer with us because of the ravages of Hurricane
Katrina 2 years ago. After Dr. DeBakey completed his internship at
Charity, he went on to the University of Strasbourg in France and the
University of Heidelberg in Germany.
He volunteered for service in World War II and was subsequently named
director of the surgical consultants division of the U.S. Surgeon
General's Office. His work during that war led to the development of
what we have already heard described today as the Mobile Army Surgical
Hospital, the so-called MASH unit. Mr. Green has already eloquently
pointed out that we wouldn't have the MASH units today. More
importantly, we wouldn't have those forward surgical teams that go into
the combat areas and provide vital care to our soldiers in that first
golden hour after injury, all of that pioneered by Dr. DeBakey well
over two generations ago.
He helped establish the specialized medical and surgical center
system for treating military personnel returning home from war, which
we now know as the Veterans Administration Medical Center. But it was
at Methodist Hospital in Houston where Dr. DeBakey performed many of
his groundbreaking surgeries, including the first removal of a carotid
artery blockage in 1950, interestingly the year that I was born, the
first coronary artery bypass graft in 1964, the first use of a
ventricle assist device to pump blood and support a diseased heart in
1966; and then on to some of the first heart transplants in this
country in 1968 and 1969.
He developed a self-contained miniaturized left ventricular assist
device to pump blood for a diseased heart, something that is in use to
this day. The techniques used to miniaturize the device's inner
workings were developed by engineers working on the Nation's space
program at nearby NASA.
He has served as adviser to every President of the United States for
the last 50 years. Think of that, Mr. Speaker: every President for the
last 50 years has depended upon Dr. Michael DeBakey for medical advice.
He has given advice to heads of state throughout the world and traveled
famously to Russia in 1996 to consult on heart surgery for the ailing
Boris Yeltsin. I have
[[Page H11081]]
to believe, Mr. Speaker, that he did a lot more than consult in that
operating room that day 10 years ago.
During his professional surgical career, he performed more than
60,000 cardiovascular procedures and trained thousands of surgeons who
practice around the world. Today, his name is affixed to any number of
organizations, centers for learning and projects devoted to medical
education and health education for the general public.
But think of this, Mr. Speaker: Dr. DeBakey also underwent an
operation that was named for him. I picked up a copy of the New York
Times last December and read a story about how Dr. DeBakey had
undergone the surgery that he himself had described many years before.
In fact, Dr. DeBakey admitted that at the time, although he knew he was
ill, he never called his own doctor, he never called 911.
``If it becomes intense enough you are perfectly willing to accept
cardiac arrest as a possible way of getting rid of the pain.'' This is
what he told the New York Times last year. What a unique, what a
pragmatic individual.
He helped establish the National Library of Medicine which is now the
world's largest and most prestigious repository of medical archives.
The National Library of Medicine is something I look at several times a
week as I prepare for committee hearings on our Committee on Energy and
Commerce, developed and established by Dr. Michael DeBakey.
Mr. Speaker, as we talk in this Congress about the need for improving
computer technology for medical records and medical information, Dr.
DeBakey was on the forefront of that while most of us were still in
grammar school. In 1969 he received the highest honor a United States
citizen can receive, the Presidential Medal of Freedom with
Distinction. In 1976, his students founded the Michael E. DeBakey
International Surgical Society. His contributions to medicine and his
breakthrough surgeries and innovative devices have completely
transformed our view of the human body and our view of longevity on
this planet. He has been designated as a living legend by the United
States Library of Congress; and, today, we take another step in
honoring him with the Congressional Gold Medal.
Mr. Speaker, it has been a high honor for me to be associated with
this endeavor. And I certainly do thank Mr. Green and thank him for
allowing me to be on the telephone when we gave the news to Dr. DeBakey
several weeks ago on his 99th birthday. It is imperative that we get
this legislation accomplished quickly. I appreciate Mr. Green's
willingness to work with the other body in getting this legislation to
the floor so swiftly.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Congressman
Burgess, for it was he who called this piece of legislation to my
attention. And he has been steadfastly with me throughout the process,
and I am honored to have worked on this piece of legislation with him
and Congressman Culberson.
I also think that we would be remiss, Mr. Speaker, if we did not
mention Mrs. DeBakey and the persons who are caring for him currently.
We have had conversations with the persons caring for him. They have
indicated that, of course, he was doing well when last we spoke to
them, and they do an outstanding job of caring for Dr. DeBakey.
Earlier, I mentioned that he has had the Methodist Hospital DeBakey
Heart Center named in his honor, and I may have misspoken and said
Baylor, but it is Methodist.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation has received
bipartisan as well as bicameral support. I had the honor of meeting
with Senator Hutchison, and we talked about continuing the effort
together to move this piece of legislation as quickly as possible
through the process so that the President can sign it and get the
actual award ceremony to take place. The President will now have 10
days to sign this bill. History will show us that at no time has a
President refused to sign a Congressional Gold Medal. So my suspicion
is that this President, who is from the State of Texas, will move
expeditiously to sign the bill. After the bill has been signed, the
U.S. Mint will meet with the sponsors and with interested parties,
which may include family members, to discuss possible designs for the
medal.
The Mint engravers will then prepare a series of sketches and
possible designs for consideration. These designs will be commented on
by the Commission of Fine Arts, and subsequently the Secretary of the
Treasury will make the final decision as to the medal's design. The
medal is created by the Philadelphia Mint. The medal will be in bronze.
The gold medal, of course, will be the one presented to Dr. DeBakey,
but there will be replicas in bronze to offset the cost of the medal,
and arrangements will be made for the presentation of the gold medal, a
ceremony to honor the Honorable Michael E. DeBakey.
Mr. Speaker, this has been one of the great pleasures of my life in
terms of being in Congress, in fact, one of the great pleasures of my
life period. But this is a high point in my congressional career. I am
so honored that my friends have worked with me on this process and that
Senator Hutchison has been there throughout the entirety of the
process. We are committed to making this happen as expeditiously as
possible. If Dr. DeBakey were here today, I am confident that he would
continue to talk about how great it is to be a part of this great
country that we know as the United States of America.
So I close by saying, God bless you, Dr. DeBakey, and thank you for
what you have done to make life better for all of us, and God bless
America.
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