Next month, Grassley is scheduled to participate at the first Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Children'sCongress on Capitol Hill. More than 100 children with diabetes representing all 50 states willconvene in Washington to make the case for diabetes funding aimed at finding a cure. An 11-year-old girl from Blairstown will represent Iowa during a Senate hearing and congressional luncheon onJune 22, 1999.
Last month, Grassley spearheaded a bipartisan effort to boost the federal commitment to diabetesresearch. In a letter sent April 26 to key Senate appropriators, Grassley and Sen. Pat Leahy garnered39 signatures in an effort to increase diabetes research funding by 84 percent to $827 million at theNational Institutes of Health (NIH) in fiscal 2000.
"Beefing up the federal effort to help find a cure for this disease which today afflicts 16 millionAmericans makes sense," said Grassley. "The taxpayers each year finance more than $40 billion fordiabetes care. Earmarking this additional research money for identified diabetes researchopportunities will help alleviate its human toll and economic impact on society."
A panel of diabetes experts set up by Congress two years ago has issued a comprehensive plan fordiabetes research at NIH, identifying hundreds of extraordinary opportunities for long-soughtbreakthroughs to the disease that is the leading cause of kidney failure, blindness and non-traumaticamputations. The group advocated the sizable budget increase to fully implement its research planand to mitigate the rising impact of diabetes in the United States.
"Putting more money in at the front end is good preventive medicine," said Grassley. "With thisextra boost, researchers can accelerate efforts on finding a cure for diabetes. That would be awelcome development in the new century: to wipe out this disease from the face of the earth."
The 39 senators addressed their letter to the chairman and ranking members of the Senateappropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. A seniormember of the Budget Committee, Grassley said he would continue to weigh-in during theappropriations process. "With two-fifths of the Senate on our side, I am optimistic we have a goodchance this year to increase funding for diabetes research," he said.