[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 262]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call the Congress' attention 
to what I think is our most important issue we face as a Congress and 
as a people, and that is preserving America's greatest asset, which is 
the health and lives of our citizens.
  In doing so, I request, as I have done on many occasions, that my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle join me in adequately funding our 
Nation's other department of defense--coequally important--the National 
Institutes of Health.
  Yes, the Department of Defense is important, and we fund it more than 
adequately, more than they even ask for, and it protects us from ISIS 
and others that caused the great tragedy in Paris and has caused terror 
and havoc in Great Britain, Australia, and Canada and that I am sure 
will come to our shores sooner than we expect, but the National 
Institutes of Health protects us from disease, disease that threatens 
every American and every American's loved one.
  The sequestration has cut billions from NIH's budget, and that is our 
country's foremost medical research center. It has helped billions of 
people across the country and across the world who suffer from heart 
disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, you name 
it, but we have inadequately funded the NIH.
  It has not kept up with the level of inflation over the last decade. 
Based on that level of inflation, the funding we have given the NIH has 
resulted in a 10 percent diminution in funding on the purchasing power 
of the National Institutes of Health.
  The likelihood of any one of us dying from a terrorist attack or from 
some weapon fired from North Korea or Russia or Iran is very slim, but 
the odds of us suffering from the diseases which I have mentioned 
previously is likely in our loved ones. We need to fight those 
diseases. We can do it, and we can successfully come up with treatments 
and cures if we fund the National Institutes of Health.
  Supporting the NIH used to be a bipartisan commitment, especially 
seeing that every dollar invested results in about $2.21 in economic 
growth. I hope that this new American Congress will see that and that 
my Republican colleagues will agree with me that we need to put a focus 
on our individual capital, the personal capital of people, their health 
and their well-being.
  I talked to Representative Marino recently, and he is going to join 
me in founding an NIH caucus. I think there is nothing more important. 
In the past, many times, when I have brought up funding for the NIH, 
friends on the other side have said: ``Well, we will have to pay for 
it. If we put more money in it, then our children and grandchildren 
will be paying for the debt for years to come.''
  That may be true, but nevertheless, the children and the 
grandchildren will be receiving the benefits of the treatments and 
cures more likely than any of us will, for research takes a long time.
  We also need to change our course in stem cell research. We have had 
problems with allowing scientists to use this opportunity to come 
through with great medical breakthroughs.
  Federal funding is currently prohibited by the 1996 Dickey amendment 
to the appropriations bill that funds the NIH, but researchers around 
the world have dived headfirst into the field using stem cells and 
producing incredible findings and progress.
  In 2010, a gentleman named Darek Fidyka, a Polish man, was stabbed 
multiple times in a knife attack, and he was paralyzed from the chest 
down, but thanks to stem cell research in Poland, in collaboration with 
researchers and doctors there and in the United Kingdom, Darek can now 
walk again with the help of a walker.
  Dr. Geoff Raisman, the chair of neurological regeneration at 
University College London's Institute of Neurology called this 
development--and I agree with him--``more impressive than man walking 
on the Moon.''

                              {time}  1030

  We allowed a man who couldn't walk, couldn't stand to walk, and more 
will come from that research on stem cells and other scientific 
research. Darek otherwise would have been paralyzed for life, and now 
he is walking again thanks to private investment in stem cell research, 
but the government needs to participate.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for this Congress to adequately fund the 
National Institutes of Health, recognize its importance to our 
constituents who are important to us, and whose lives and health are 
the most important things that we can provide for them. It is time this 
country no longer turns a blind eye to research, and to stem cell 
research in particular. I urge my colleagues to seize the opportunities 
offered by this new Congress and join me in the efforts to fund the 
National Institutes of Health and to join the National Institutes of 
Health Caucus.

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