Michael Burgess: “Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in strong support of H.R. 1362, which I authored with Mr. Van Hollen. There are over 400,000…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in strong support of H.R. 1362, which I authored with Mr. Van Hollen. There are over 400,000 Americans living with MS and millions of more Americans who live with some form of neurological disorder. As co-chairman of the Congressional MS Caucus, I have been working to further research into the development of MS and other neurological disorders to help the population of Americans living with MS. I firmly believe that a national surveillance system will be a critical first step toward allowing our researchers access to information that could be the key to finding cures. The other night, I was told that we are running for second base in our efforts to cure neurological diseases and that we have never tagged first. This bill, H.R. 1362, the National Neurological Diseases Surveillance System Act of 2010, is our first base. Currently, there is no formal coordinated system to track and collect data on these diseases, and the lack of comprehensive data collection impedes progression to finding a cure. In fact, the last national study of the prevalence of MS was conducted 34 years ago. This integrated research will help drive innovation and will provide a solid understanding of how factors such as gender and age influence disease prevalence.”