Louise Slaughter: “I have some shocking news this morning. If my colleagues will recall, last Thursday, I think in a moment of spectacular…”

“I have some shocking news this morning. If my colleagues will recall, last Thursday, I think in a moment of spectacular madness, the majority of this House passed a bill that cut the funding for research to the National Institutes of Health until the last 2 days of the fiscal year next year. The troubling news I have this morning is that it has come to our attention that a brazen act by some staffers in Congress has taken place. Majority staffers in the other body have warned the National Institutes of Health researchers and the research advocates that if they complain about the delays proposed for the research, their own funding is going to be jeopardized. This is a scandal of major proportions; taking away the first amendment rights and the rights of people to try to address this body. Now, just yesterday it was announced by researchers at the University of Rochester, New York, in my district, that they have discovered that genetic material from the HIV virus can kill cancer tumors. They tell me that this and other NIH-funded research is what is going to be hampered in Rochester if their funding is delayed. The chairman of the Labor-HHS subcommittee yesterday asked the President to veto the bill because he is stunned too by its irresponsibility.”