Steve Israel: “Mr. Speaker, there are times when we can make a difference and sometimes it is the difference between life and death…”

“Mr. Speaker, there are times when we can make a difference and sometimes it is the difference between life and death, and today is one of those days. We are considering a resolution that could begin a process that will save the lives of thousands of American women with ovarian cancer and women all over the world over the next several years. The resolution before us, which I introduced with the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), distinguished colleague, calls on the National Institutes of Health to conduct a complete multi-institutional trial of a potentially huge breakthrough in the early detection of ovarian cancer. My colleagues have heard the statistics. About 75 percent of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer receive that diagnosis in the advanced stages of the disease when survival rates are only 20 percent. Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of gynecologic cancers. It is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths among American women. One out of every 57 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Last year nearly 14,000 women in America died from ovarian cancer. The statistics are alarming, but we can do something about them tonight. Thanks to Peter Levine and Dr. Ben Hitt, a reliable method of early detection may be near and that early detection takes the survival rate from 20 percent to 95 percent. This is something that saves lives. These are statistics that we can improve.”