[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 3, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1473-S1474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Medical Research

  Let me switch to another topic. One of the most insidious diagnoses 
that a person can get is to learn that they have brain cancer, 
glioblastoma. There are 40,000 Americans each year who are diagnosed 
with brain cancer. It usually gives them 2 years to live when they 
receive that diagnosis--14,000 Americans each year.
  Ironically--coincidentally--it seems to have touched this body more 
than most. It was glioblastoma that took the life of Teddy Kennedy and 
John McCain and one of our great friends in the Democratic cloakroom, 
Tim Mitchell. I don't know why. I don't know if that is just a 
coincidence, but it certainly drove home to all of us what a serious 
diagnosis this is--glioblastoma, brain cancer.
  I am going to delve into territory here where my education has not 
prepared me. I am a liberal arts major and have a law degree. I will be 
talking a little about science, but, luckily, I will be reading it to 
make sure I get it right.
  One of the real obstacles to treating brain cancer is what is known 
as the blood-brain barrier. You can give--inject--a medicine into an 
ordinary person, and it will flow through their veins, but it won't get 
into the brain. So the treatment of many brain cancers is very basic--
surgery--to try to remove the tumor with surgery. But the problem is, 
of course, surgery can't capture every errant cancer cell that might be 
flowing through the brain, and eventually, the brain cancer overcomes 
even surgical attempts. So there has always been a barrier, the blood-
brain barrier.
  The treatment has been dealing with and trying to find a way to get 
into the brain with chemotherapy. The good

[[Page S1474]]

news is that this morning, it was announced that Northwestern 
University--which I am proud to represent in the city of Chicago--has 
made some breakthroughs. If you will bear with me for a moment, I want 
to make sure I state this properly:

       For the first time, previously unusable chemotherapy drugs 
     reached brain tumors in humans after a cutting-edge procedure 
     at Northwestern University team [in Chicago].
       Doctors achieved the breakthrough with an innovative mix of 
     ultrasound and microbubbles that opened the blood-brain 
     barrier to allow the drugs to pass through.

  Dr. Adam Sonabend, one of the co-lead investigators, said:

       This is a starting point to open the doors for . . . 95% of 
     drugs that are usually not [even] considered for treating 
     brain diseases.
       The Northwestern team released a report on the use of the 
     procedure to treat 17 patients with glioblastoma, the most 
     common and malignant form of brain cancer that has been 
     viewed as incurable. The treatment led to a four- to sixfold 
     increase in drug concentrations in the patients' brains, the 
     researchers [said].

  Dr. Sonabend goes on to explain the situation: The blood-brain 
barrier that blocks many drugs used to treat cancer also blocks the dye 
that they were using to see if they could finally go through with this 
procedure. Dr. Sonabend said when he injected the dye while using the 
new ultrasound procedure, the dye appeared first in the patient's blood 
vessels, but then it passed the blood-brain barrier and spread into the 
brain. The patient's brain lit up on the x ray that was taken during 
this procedure to show the effectiveness of this approach.
  Dr. Roger Stupp, chief of neurooncology at Northwestern University 
Feinberg School of Medicine also helped to lead the project. He said 
that ``This is the first trial that has taken it to the next level with 
chemotherapy drugs'' that you ordinarily could not use for brain 
tumors.
  Dr. Sonabend said:

       ``In glioblastoma patients, cancer cells scattered through 
     the brain surrounding the tumor inevitably linger after 
     surgery. They have been impossible to get to . . . ''

  Now we have an avenue that might be promising to start dealing in 
more effective ways, not only with brain cancer but also with 
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
  It is amazing to me. It literally made my day to read that story, 
that these researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health here 
in Washington may have finally come through with the ultimate 
breakthrough that will allow us to treat brain cancer more effectively. 
Can you imagine the hope this creates in the hearts and minds of so 
many families who have a victim of brain cancer in their family?
  Now why do I raise this on the floor other than to tell you, I think, 
a fascinating and important story? I do it because it is a political 
issue. We just heard the Republican leader of the Senate come forward 
and tell us that he supports the proposal by the House Republicans on 
budget cuts.
  Do you know what the House Republican budget does to medical research 
at the NIH?
  Let me read it to you. They propose ending the bipartisan commitment 
to the National Institutes of Health by cutting more than $10 billion 
in 2024. That is 25 percent of the budget for medical research and more 
than $100 billion over the next 10 years. That will shutter hundreds of 
labs across the country, lead to fewer drugs being developed for 
cancer, diabetes, serious mental illness, and other devastating 
conditions. It will decimate American biotechnology innovation and 
economic growth. Sadly, it will allow China to become the global leader 
in biomedical R&D.
  So when we talk about the budget here and budget cuts and they say: 
We are just going to cut $10 billion, we have got to step back and say: 
Well, what does that do for medical research in America? Take a step 
backwards. The hard bipartisan work that brought us to $40 billion is 
wiped away overnight. Researchers like those at Northwestern may lose 
heart and worry whether or not there is enough money to continue their 
research projects and innovation.
  What will we lose in terms of quality of life? We will lose the 
opportunity to come up with the cures that people count on.
  That is why this means so much to me. It is a small part of the cuts 
that have been proposed by the Republicans in the House, but it is the 
part that troubles me the most. We have got to keep our commitment to 
medical research for the good of this Nation and for the families that 
count on us to make certain we come up with new cures.
  We are blessed in America to have the best researchers on Earth. I 
would take them over any other country, and most Americans would. But 
are we going to stand by them, or are we going to make the deep cuts in 
areas like medical research as part of this political debate?