Arlen Specter: “As the Senator knows, we are entering the third year of a bipartisan effort to double funding for the NIH. Within that…”

“As the Senator knows, we are entering the third year of a bipartisan effort to double funding for the NIH. Within that budget, we have been able to provide significant increases in the budget for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. It is my hope and intention that, with these additional funds, NIDDK will fully implement the Strategic Plan for PKD put forward by a panel of blue-ribbon experts which they convened in 1998. These expert scientists and doctors have stated that, with a total PKD research budget of $20 million, which we provide in this bill, they are confident that a treatment for PKD can be achieved in the very near future. In fact, I am very heartened by recent reports indicating that a drug currently used to treat cancer has been shown to actually stop the progression of PKD in laboratory animals. This discovery, coupled with statements from our leading genetic researchers to the effect that PKD is the most rapidly advancing area of genetic research, convinces me that the additional funds provided in this bill will allow NIDDK to produce a treatment and eventual cure for this devastating disease. May I say to my colleague that I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that NIDDK implements the Strategic Plan for PKD. This bill provides the budgetary means to do that, and I will be following up with NIDDK on the disposition of those funds.”