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Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. I want to commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. BILIRAKIS) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. BROWN), our chairman and ranking member, for their work on this legislation.

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   Mr. Speaker, this bill includes many important provisions which will advance the treatment, the cure, and prevention of childhood diseases and disorders. I am also pleased to point out that this bill includes two titles which I have authored. Both titles promise to make significant advances in the treatment and prevention of childhood asthma and of autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, juvenile diabetes, and lupus.

   Title V of the bill, the Children Asthma Relief Act of 1999, was introduced by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. UPTON) and myself, and title XIX is based on H.R. 2573, the NIH Autoimmune Disease Initiative Act of 1999, which was authored by the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. MORELLA) and myself.

   Today more than 5 million children suffer from asthma. It is one of the most significant and prevalent chronic diseases in America. That is why this bill provides new funding for pediatric asthma prevention and treatment programs, allowing States and local communities to target and improve the health of low-income children suffering from asthma.

   As regards the autoimmune diseases, this would expand, intensify, and coordinate the efforts of NIH in research and education on autoimmune diseases. There are more than 80 autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis, in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues.

   These diseases affect more than 13.5 million Americans and are major causes of disability. Most striking of all, three-quarters of those infected with an autoimmune disease are women.

   The research efforts at NIH will be coordinated as a result of an office that would look at the activities throughout the NIH.

   I do want to point out some serious concerns over one section of the bill, title XII's adoption awareness provisions. This title was the subject of great controversy and debate. The original language raised many serious objections regarding adoption and abortion policy.

   I hope we will continue to look at this part of the bill, because it does offer some troublesome issues to be resolved.

   Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. ROUKEMA).

   (Mrs. ROUKEMA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

   Mrs. ROUKEMA. Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the chairman for yielding time to me, and thank him most deeply and sincerely for all his leadership on this.

   Mr. Speaker, all of us recognize the trauma and heartbreak that parents and all family members endure when serious illness strikes a child in the family. We must take this step today to set us on the way to making a happier, healthy life for all our children and for future generations.

   I specifically want to thank Mary Higgins Clark, the notable author, and her son, David Clark, for reaching out to me on behalf of not only of her son and grandson, but for the millions of the dear children who suffer from fragile X.

   As has been noted, fragile X is the most common inherited cause of mental retardation. With this legislation, we are clearly on the brink of a breakthrough against this tragic mental defect. The research models that have been identified here in this legislation would put us well on the road to researching recovery and a cure.

   Again, I want to thank those who have brought this to my attention. I want to thank all those who did the work on this legislation, but specifically, let me dedicate this research in the name of David Frederick Clark of Hillsdale, New Jersey.

   Ms. DEGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. CAPPS), our distinguished colleague on the committee.

   Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4365, the Children's Health Act of 2000.

   As a school nurse, a mother, a grandmother, children's health is an issue that has been of great concern to me throughout my life. This bill would dedicate more Federal spending to childhood diseases, including autism, early hearing loss, juvenile diabetes, and many others.

   I want to highlight the new focus on infant hearing loss. I recently served as a panelist at a briefing on infant hearing held by the National Campaign for Hearing Health. Every day, 33 newborns leave hospitals in this country with undiagnosed hearing loss. Yet, only one-third of all infants are tested for this most common birth defect. More than half of the infants born today with hearing impairments go undetected until age two or three, which can have a long-term impact on language, social, and cognitive skills.

   We can do better than that for our children, especially since new and effective treatments are now available. This legislation will provide needed grants to develop statewide newborn and infant hearing screening evaluations and intervention programs and systems.

   Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join parents and grandparents with children and grandchildren who suffer from these childhood diseases in supporting this very important bill.

   Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. DEMINT).

   Mr. DEMINT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.

   As the original sponsor of H.R. 2511, the Adoption Awareness Act, along with the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman BLILEY), a champion of adoption issues, I am pleased to endorse the Infant Adoption Awareness Act included in the child health bill.

   While this language is not as broad as the original legislation, it does reflect significant efforts to advance the purpose of the Adoption Awareness Act. This language was drafted with input from a wide variety of organizations, including those in the adoption and public health communities.

   Women facing unplanned pregnancies deserve to hear about their options from a well-trained counselor who can provide accurate, up-to-date information on adoption. This Act provides professional development for pregnancy counselors in adoption counseling. The training will enable pregnancy counselors to feel confident in their knowledge of the adoption process, relevant State and local laws, and the legal, medical, and financial resources which can be provided to women with unplanned pregnancies.

   Furthermore, there are true experts in the field of adoption counseling who are extremely familiar with the adoption process from the viewpoint of the birth mother placing a child for adoption. These individuals should be the trainers for the pregnancy counselors receiving the training.

   I am pleased to support the Infant Adoption Awareness Act as a step in the right direction to bring complete and accurate adoption information to women facing unplanned pregnancies. I hope that this step significantly advances our Nation in the direction of eliminating a perceived anti-adoption bias in pregnancy counseling in providing lasting answers to difficult circumstances.

   I truly believe that in our great Nation, while there may be unwanted pregnancies, there are no unwanted children.

   Ms. DEGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to our colleague, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. GANSKE), a member of the committee.

   Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me.

   Mr. Speaker, I will vote for this bill. It does many good things. But Mr. Speaker, I have to ask, if we are going to legislate on this floor on fragile X, autism, juvenile diabetes, then why do we not address on this floor the number one public health issue before the country, and that is the use of tobacco?

   It has been well recognized that tobacco companies for a long time have been targeting kids to get them to smoke. Why? Because nicotine is one of the most addicting substances known. It is as addicting as morphine. Those tobacco companies know if they get kids hooked early it is very, very difficult to get them to quit.

   Three thousand kids today will start smoking. One thousand of those kids will eventually die of a tobacco-related disease. I think it is a travesty that we

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   Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. STEARNS).

   (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

   Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

   Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4365 and applaud the chairman for the work he is doing here. He has lots of Members who want priorities. I think this is a very important bill.

   Part of the bill is this adoption awareness, and specifically infant adoption awareness ensures that family planning counselors have access to training on presenting complete and accurate adoption information and referrals to women facing unplanned pregnancies.

   Two, the special needs adoption awareness directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to carry out a national campaign to provide information to the public on adoption of special needs children, establishes a toll-free telephone line for providing information, makes grants to support groups for adoptive parents, and for research on reasons for adoption disruptions.

   I think this is extremely important here in Congress to realize that adoption awareness is a solution for many women. I applaud the chairman for all the work he is doing. I am pleased to be a cosponsor and to provide support.

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD).

   Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4365, and would like to focus on one element of this bill, the Folic Acid Promotion and Birth Defects Prevention Act, which I introduced last year with the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. EMERSON).

   This provision will help prevent an estimated 2,500 U.S. babies a year from being born with serious birth defects of the brain and spine, such as spina bifida. Added to this tragedy is the fact that up to 70 percent of these birth defects can be prevented if women of childbearing age consume 400 micrograms of folic acid daily.

   Unfortunately, thousands of U.S. women are unaware of this fact. The Folic Acid Promotion and Birth Defects Prevention Act in this bill addresses this problem by authorizing the Centers for Disease Control to launch a national education and public awareness campaign to inform women of the benefits of folic acid.

   Like so many public health needs, common sense tells us that devoting a few extra dollars to this problem today will save thousands of dollars in future health care costs, but more importantly, will prevent the occurrence of these tragic birth defects.

   On behalf of our Nation's families, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4365.

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. BENTSEN).

   (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

   Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4365, the Children's Health Act of 2000.

   I want to focus on one point of this bill. While I support every part of it, particularly the pediatric research, I want to talk a little bit about the graduate medical education part of this bill, because I have the honor of representing the Texas Medical Center, which is the largest Medical Center in the world and includes the largest children hospital, Texas Children's Hospital, as well as Hermann Children's Hospital in the Harris County Hospital District.

[Time: 14:45]

   That being said, there is a great deal of clinical research that is done through graduate medical education at Children's Hospital which is not reimbursed because our medical education system is funded through the Medicare program and really does need to be restructured.

   This bill is the first step following up on what we did last year in funding, at least in part, some of that medical education that is conducted at children's hospitals. Congress should go a lot further, frankly, but I am pleased that this bill includes that.

   Mr. Speaker, let me say what I regret about this bill. What I regret is where it is lacking, and that is in the Medicaid program itself. There are 3 million children, including 800,000 children in my home State of Texas, who are eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled in the program. Texas leads the Nation in the number of children, nearly a million children, not enrolled in the program.

   The gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DEGETTE) and myself have both offered bills that would begin to address this problem and bring these children into the system. This creates an even greater burden in our children's hospitals because when these kids get sick, they end up at the children's hospitals and we pay for it through the disproportionate share program. The fact is they ought to be enrolled in the Medicaid program and getting the preventive health care they need, instead of showing up at the emergency room at the last minute at a much higher cost structure.

   So I regret the fact that the committee chose not to include these bills in this bill. I think overall, this is a good bill. But I would hope that the Committee on Commerce will move swiftly to bring these children into the Medicaid program and start to address this problem. And I think by doing that, we will not only be doing a lot for these kids, but we will be doing a lot for our children's hospitals throughout the country.

   Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. MORELLA).

   Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. BILIRAKIS) for yielding the time to me, and I certainly commend the gentleman for his leadership, along with the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. BROWN), ranking member, for this legislation, the Children's Health Act of 2000. I strongly support it.

   Mr. Speaker, the bill attempts to foster Federal and State cooperation in creating public awareness about some of the devastating effects of disorders such as autism, epilepsy, fragile X, asthma and skeletal cancer in children.

   I am pleased that it authorizes the Director of NIH to expand programs and activities dealing with autoimmune diseases, including the formation of coordinating committee and advisory councils to develop NIH activities in this area and report to Congress on how funds are being spend on autoimmune diseases.

   Mr. Speaker, let me put a face on these dreaded diseases. They include juvenile diabetes, juvenile arthritis, rheumatic fever, Crohn's disease, pediatric lupus, Grave's disease, Evans syndrome, autoimmune hepatitis, primary biliary cirrhosis, and the list goes on and on.

   There have been so few epidemiology studies on the prevalence of these diseases in children that we can only give a best effort estimate that upwards of 9 million pediatric and adolescent children are afflicted with one or more autoimmune diseases. The lack of epidemiology studies clearly shows that there is a need for comprehensive approach to research in these areas.

   This is a comprehensive approach; this is a comprehensive bill. It is a bill that I urge my colleagues to support unanimously, H.R. 4365.

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. LOWEY).

   Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4365. By expanding pediatric research efforts and providing additional resources for a number of diseases which afflict children, this bill will go a long way toward improving health care for our children and enhancing their health and safety.

   As the main Democratic sponsor of the Safe Motherhood Monitoring and Prevention Research Act, I am particularly pleased that H.R. 4365 includes provisions to ensure that maternal health and safe motherhood research and programs are top public health priorities.

   As we all know, the CDC is the premier source of health surveillance in

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   While most of us think that childbirth and pregnancy are completely safe, CDC's research tells us otherwise. According to the CDC, two to three women die each day from pregnancy-related conditions and nearly 5,000 women experience major complications either before or after labor begins. Even more disturbing is the news that black women are four times more likely and Hispanic women 1.7 times per likely to die during pregnancy than their white counterparts and that access to prenatal care does not close this gap.

   That is why it is critical that we give the CDC the tools they need to collect data, investigate maternal deaths, research risks, and examine problems like domestic violence during pregnancy. Armed with that information and research, the CDC will also get the word out to women who need it most and the doctors who serve them.

   Mr. Speaker, no woman should die due to pregnancy in 2000. So as we approach Mother's Day, I am delighted that this bill will enable CDC to do its good work.

   The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. BARRETT of Nebraska). The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. BROWN) is advised that he has 30 seconds remaining, as does the gentleman from Florida (Mr. BILIRAKIS).

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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