Political Quotes

“I rise today today with my colleagues, Senators DeWine, Fitzgerald, Kerry, Bingaman, Schumer and Abraham to offer this critical amendment to increase funding for childhood asthma programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the next 15 minutes imagine breathing through a tiny straw the size of a coffee stirrer, never getting enough air. Now imagine suffering through the process three to six times a day. This is asthma. "America is in the middle of an asthma epidemic--an epidemic that is getting worse, not better." So says the PEW environmental Health Commission in its most recent report on asthma. The prevalence of asthma continues to rise at astounding rates--every region of the country and across all demographic groups, whether measured by age, race or sex. In America today, no chronic disease is increasing faster than asthma. And asthma is considered the worst chronic health problem plaguing this nation's children. Among those four years old, it has mushroomed by 160 percent over the last 2 decades. Asthma affects nearly 15 million Americans. That figure includes more than 700,000 Illinoisans, of whom 213,000 are children under the age of 18. Chicago has the dubious distinction of having the second highest rate of childhood asthma in the country.”