Joe Cunningham: “the gentlewoman well knows that I am a champion for medical research. I have got a goal. My daughter scored a perfect…”

“the gentlewoman well knows that I am a champion for medical research. I have got a goal. My daughter scored a perfect 1600 on her SATs this year as a senior at Torrey Pines. She is going to intern in cancer research at NIH this summer. I am a cancer survivor. There is nothing worse than a doctor looking you in the eye and saying, ``Duke Cunningham, you have got cancer.'' I am a survivor. And if the gentlewoman would have offsets in this, I would be with her in this amendment. I would hope in conference we can add to this and somehow come up with the additional dollars in this. Unfortunately, the politics in this, that is being shown in all these amendments, is what is discouraging, because the gentlewoman, the ranking minority member, Democrats and Republicans, have come together on NIH funding to support it, and I still hope in some way we can add these particular dollars down the line. In cancer, Dr. Klausner, and you see what he is doing at NIH, I would say I was saved because of a PSA test. Do you know that right now, because of this research, there are markers for ovarian cancer which we have never had before? Women had no markers in this. I met a gentleman at NIH that contacted HIV in 1989. The only thing he ever thought about was dying. And now he has hope. He has bought an apartment. He has even bought stocks. This is what we are talking about when we talk about NIH funding.”