Louise Slaughter: “I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio, specifically to the draconian cuts that it…”

“I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio, specifically to the draconian cuts that it makes in an area that I have been working on and that I think is important to every American family. I speak today as a microbiologist with a master's degree in Public Health and say quite honestly that the benefits to health research we have achieved over the last 4 years will be destroyed in the Kasich budget. We remember how hard we worked in this House to get where we are today. I think every American woman is beginning to realize that for years she had been completely ignored in health resources. We found this out first after the aspirin studies became known to us. We were told that an aspirin a day would help men to prevent heart attack or a stroke. We were delighted. We said, 'Every man we know shall certainly take this aspirin. Now, how much do we take?' It was then that we discovered that women had been left out of the clinical trials, and that they had no idea if we would benefit. Over the years during the total neglect of the health care of women in this country, the incidence of breast cancer has risen in the United States while it has fallen in countries that are comparable to ours. As a matter of fact, every woman in this country knows that the statistics are 1 in 8.”