Joe Cunningham: “I reluctantly stand opposed to this amendment, but I understand why my colleagues want it. I do not think there is a…”

“I reluctantly stand opposed to this amendment, but I understand why my colleagues want it. I do not think there is a thing in there I would support if asked to support, but I will say that I have hundreds of doctors and hospitals come to me every single day and ask me to direct NIH to do this or that. I personally believe that things and discoveries should be left up to NIH, that when something is close to helping, we should allow them to do that. But once we get into politicians, which we all are, directing what NIH does, it is not what you are trying to eliminate, it is the whole broad perspective of what we could do in the long run. In the past, many of the diseases were politicized, and funding was taken totally away from others, and I want to stay away from that. I think it is a bad precedent, not on the gentleman's issue, but on the precedent of directing NIH. I reluctantly oppose the amendment.”