On the recordMarch 22, 2013
as we consider the budget resolution, laying out a blueprint for how we invest in our Nation's priorities, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment creating a deficit-neutral reserve fund to allow for the growth of the National Institutes of Health, NIH. We all have benefited from medical innovations and cures supported by the NIH. If you have ever faced the diagnosis of an illness in your family and turned to the doctor to ask: ``Is there a cure? Is there a treatment?'' then you understand the importance of NIH research for your family. Great medical care is only as good as the science behind it. Drugs and devices work only as well as our understanding of the medical condition we are treating. NIH support has established the U.S. as a global leader in medical innovations that save lives, and we are on the verge of so many life- changing discoveries. We all remember the 1980s as the AIDS epidemic gripped our country and the world with a disease that was at that time a death sentence. But now thanks to drugs created with NIH support, people with HIV can live a long, productive life into old age. Ironically, the same week that sequestration took effect, a groundbreaking medical discovery supported by NIH was made in AIDS research. A 2-year old baby in Mississippi born with HIV may be the first child to be functionally cured of the disease after receiving a cocktail of drugs.…
