A monumental vote on the 21st Century Cures Act is just hours away, and the New York Daily News added its voice to get #CuresNow across the finish line. Praising the bipartisan hard work of committee leaders, the editorial board highlights a “promising legislative package," saying that Congress “is on the verge of doing something big."
Nov. 30, 2016
EDITORIAL: A better pill to swallow with Congress adding to health funding
The do-nothing Congress is on the verge of doing something big: boosting by billions federal support for medical research, while prying drug and device testing free of needless constraints on innovation.
That the 21st Century Cures Act now also includes crucial measures to speed psychological treatment to the most seriously sick, steadfastly advanced by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), gives the House of Representatives all the more reason to pass this promising legislative package in a vote expected Wednesday.
An important part of the bill - championed by Michigan’s Fred Upton in the House and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander - would move the U.S. from the 20th century era of one-size-fits-all pharmaceutical testing, rigidly categorized by medical condition, to a more flexible model in which drug developers - a disproportionate share of whom are here in research-rich New York - can target treatments to subsets of patients biologically predisposed to respond to them.
A $4.8 billion boost to the National Institutes of Health encompasses the cancer-research “moonshot" sought by Vice President Joe Biden in memory of his late son Beau, backing for research into brain afflictions such as Alzheimer’s and research into the genetic and environmental factors driving disease.
Another $1 billion would help states combat the scourge of opioid abuse. The Food and Drug Administration, which tests and okays treatments, would get funding enabling it to hire the best talent to oversee the expected flourishing of sophisticated medical trials.
The mental health provisions could prove a godsend to families struggling to care for severely mentally ill loved ones, by giving them greater access to their treatment plans and expanding use of court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment for those who pose a danger to themselves or others, known in New York as Kendra’s Law.
For a Congress that’s frequently infected by a partisan aversion to government spending, even when that spending will alleviate suffering, this bill is timely medicine.
Among the House members casting a vote will be Dr. Tom Price, nominee to be next secretary of Health and Human Services, overseeing both the NIH and FDA.
Should the Cures Act become law, Price will have the heady responsibility of making more and more life-saving advances go from the research bench to medicine cabinet.
Read the full editorial online HERE.
