[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9048]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    FUND SCIENCE, NOT WEAPONS OF WAR

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, today or sometime this week, this House will 
vote on additional funds for the wars in the Middle East, Iraq and 
Afghanistan. I wish there was an opportunity for me to vote for funds 
to support our troops in Afghanistan, who are making an effort in 
defeating the Taliban and seeking out Osama bin Laden, the perpetrators 
of 9/11. However, the bills are drawn together; so I will vote ``no.''
  And I feel at this time we know the war in Iraq is going in the wrong 
direction, but I also know that there are catastrophic illnesses and 
diseases on mankind and womenkind in our world, and a great country 
should use its resources for the best purposes, not weapons of war but 
use our science and our intelligence to find ways to conquer disease.
  I had polio when I was a child, and if we had put more money into 
helping Jonas Salk, maybe I would not have had polio. It was months 
after Salk's vaccine was introduced.
  I lost a friend to cancer last week, Thomas Boggs. There will be a 
time when people lose friends to cancer that could have been cured if 
we had put more money into research earlier. Diabetes, Parkinson's, 
heart disease. In Memphis we have St. Jude Children's Hospital looking 
for cures to illnesses and diseases.
  A great country should do great things. I encourage us to not fund 
war but to fund science.

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