Bill Clinton: “First, let me say that we have made a dramatic increase in medical research one of the priorities for the last 2 years…”

“First, let me say that we have made a dramatic increase in medical research one of the priorities for the last 2 years for the millennium. We're trying to double funding for the National Cancer Institute and eventually double funding for all the National Institutes of Health. And Vice President Gore gave a speech in Philadelphia about 10 days or so ago now, where all the major associations involved in the fight against cancer came to talk about long-term plans that would really give us a chance of finding cures for many, many types of cancer. I think it will be a big national priority in the years ahead. And he gave, I thought, a very good speech about what should be done to take advantage of what we already know is out there on the horizon, just by accelerating our investments and making sure we're doing the proper testing in the proper range of our population. I'm quite encouraged about it. I think a lot of the big breakthroughs will come after I leave office. But I hope that the groundwork we've laid now will bring them sooner. And I think one of the things that I hope will be a big part of the debate for all of you for all the elective offices when we come up in the year 2000--I say this not in a partisan way, because, actually, we've had very good Republican as well as Democrat support for the National Institutes of Health funding--but I think this should be a major issue and a subject of debate that all of us should talk about as Americans: What is our commitment over the long run to doing this kind of research and getting the answers as quickly as we can? Thank you. [The conversation continued.]”