Dianne Feinstein: “today, with Senator Snowe, I am introducing a bill to set up a toll-free service so that people with life-threatening…”

“today, with Senator Snowe, I am introducing a bill to set up a toll-free service so that people with life-threatening diseases can find out about research projects that might help them. Today there are thousands of serious and life-threatening diseases, diseases for which we have no cure. For genetic diseases alone, there are 3,000 to 4,000. Some of these are familiar, like cancer, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis. Others are not so common, like cystinosis, Tay-Sachs disease, Wilson's disease, and Sjogren's syndrome. Indeed, there are over 5,000 rare diseases, diseases most of us have never heard of, affecting between 10 and 20 million Americans. Cancer kills half a million Americans per year. Diabetes afflicts 15 million Americans per year, half of whom do not know they have it. Arthritis affects 40 million Americans every year. 15,000 American children die every year. Among children, the rates of chronic respiratory diseases--asthma, bronchitis, and sinusitis--heart murmurs, migraine headaches, anemia, epilepsy, and diabetes are increasing. Few families escape illness today. The Bill The bill we introduce requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a ``one-stop shopping'' database, including a toll-free telephone number, so that patients and physicians can find out what clinical research trials are underway on experimental treatments for various diseases.”