CAPITOL HILL REPORT CAPITOL HILL REPORT By Congressman Bill Delahunt
During the 1990s, Congress ambitiously doubled funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a result, medical research into some of the most pressing health problems facing our population was advanced.
Just recently, those efforts yielded the first vaccine for cervical cancer and aided in mapping the human genome, a crucial step to eradicating and preventing these ailments for future generations.
Never before have we been so close to finding the causes and cures for other illness such as diabetes, breast cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. To borrow the sports analogy, we're first-and-goal in many of these fights.
However, the Bush Administration's recent fiscal year 2007 NIH budget threatens to undo all this progress. The president's proposed budget would, for the second time in as many years, cut funding for 18 of the 19 institutes—including the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and, most egregious of all, he proposes cutting the National Cancer Institute by $40 million.
This is wrong, and many of my colleagues are opposed to these cuts. However, restoring funding for the NIH is going to be an uphill battle. As many of you know, Congress is dealing with a treasury that has been hollowed out to pay for everything from disproportionate tax cuts, Iraq reconstruction, rebuilding the Gulf Coast and the complex, confusing Medicare Prescription Drug benefit.
Presently, legislation that contains the NIH budget is stalled; in part, because of a disagreement over raising the federal minimum wage over two years to $7.25, the first increase in10 years. Without this added income, many low-wage workers will not be able to afford the increasing costs of their own health insurance plans, thus leading to crowded emergency rooms and overburdening an already-strapped health care system.
Even worse, the Administration's budget also reduces funding for important clinical trials. All of us have watched as a loved one, friend or coworker has struggled to manage an illness. For many, there is only slight hope that one of these clinical trials could hold a chance for a better quality of life. But still many who participate in these research studies do so because traditional medical treatments have been ineffective or because they want to play some part in the battle against an insidious disease that took the life of someone they knew.
Most of us will never know who they are, but we are all familiar with their courage and their commitment. Because of them, life-saving treatments have been developed for HIV/AIDS and cancer. Prescription medications have been approved for the marketplace. Our understanding of mental health disorders has increased ten-fold. In many cases, the death sentences associated with some diagnoses have been commuted, and patients finally have a fighting chance.
For more information about clinical trials, including the more than 13,000 that are looking for participants, or to read some of the 8,000 completed studies, visit www.clinicaltrials.gov.
As co-chair of the Older American's Caucus in the House of Representatives, I'm well aware that the first of the "Baby Boomers" is about to turn 60. While I welcome them to the club, it means that we will see an increasing number of the medical and mental ailments that affect older Americans. The NIH is an essential component in fighting and curing disease. To under-fund this agency at this time is both unworthy and shortsighted.