Steve Buyer: “I rise in support of H.R. 2818, as amended, the Veterans Epilepsy Treatment Act of 2008. It's a bill to amend title 38…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 2818, as amended, the Veterans Epilepsy Treatment Act of 2008. It's a bill to amend title 38 of the United States Code to provide for the establishment of Epilepsy Centers of Excellence in the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs. I would like to thank the Health Subcommittee chairman, Mike Michaud, and Ranking Member Jeff Miller for their work on the bill. They determined that existing six new centers spread throughout the country without utilizing the clinical and scientific expertise available within the VA's polytrauma rehabilitation centers was probably not the optimal approach. So working in a bipartisan manner, this legislation was amended to ensure that there will soon be five polytrauma rehabilitation centers. We also need to recognize that we have many of these 89,000 veterans who live in rural areas and also will be traveling distances, we need to acknowledge, to these rehabilitation centers; so there is an energy cost issue, which we are going to address here in a moment. The VA has a long history of providing specialized treatment and research on epilepsy.”