Political Quotes

“we have had a lot of debate, a lot of heated rhetoric, and a lot of stirring stories of personal tragedies during this morning's session and tonight, and there is a lot of emotion involved. I think it is reasonable to understand why there is emotion, because every year in the United States there are approximately 150,000 babies born with serious birth defects. There are congenital heart defects, Down's syndrome, neural tube defects, primarily spina bifida. Of those birth defects, about 4,000 babies have spina bifida. Over the past several years, I have worked with the March of Dimes attempting, with some success, to get the Centers for Disease Control funding for their prevention programs in research to find out what causes these problems, to set up a surveillance and monitoring program so that we can have some sound evidence as to what causes these defects. Some research on spina bifida is already bearing fruit. There is a connection between mothers taking folic acid early in pregnancy, and reduced rates of the incidence of spina bifida have been found. This is good news. This is good science. We are making some progress. But a lot more work needs to be done on the causes, the incidence, and the protections. Now we come to the recent actions by the National Academy of Sciences. Let me be clear that the agent orange law does not require us to expand an entitlement on this bill. The Agent Orange law does not apply to children or offspring of veterans.”