Political Quotes

“I come to the floor to lend my voice to asking my colleagues to vote for the motion to proceed to the FDA Safety and Innovation Act. Like the Presiding Officer, who is from Delaware, where its excellent private sector and public sector have been the hallmark of innovation, I represent a State that is absolutely critical to the innovation economy. Those of us from Maryland know life science innovation is one of the important economic engines in our economy both today and in the future. We are the home to flagship government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and iconic internationally branded universities that do research and move it into clinical practice at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. There are also lots of thriving biotech companies and some medical devices. So for us life science is part of the lifeblood of the Maryland economy, and it is also part of the lifeblood of the American economy. Think of what we do. We come up with new biological products, new pharmaceuticals, new medical devices that not only save and improve lives but also enable them to help people in our own country. Because they are FDA approved--the gold standard for safety and efficacy--they can sell these products around the world, often to countries that will never be able to afford an FDA.…”