During final debate for the FY 2011 Continuing Budget Resolution (H.R.  1), Congressman Higgins spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives in opposition to the proposed cuts to the National Institute of Health, in particular cancer research.

Below are Congressman Higgins' remarks as prepared:

Mister Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mister Chairman, I rise today in opposition to this Continuing Resolution. 

Instead of fighting the war on cancer, this bill declares war on cancer research.

NCI Director Harold Varmus said it best when in December he warned that the proposed cuts would have lethal consequences.

And he is right.  The proposed $1.6 billion dollar cut to NIH would undermine the most successful innovation model the world has ever seen.

The classic view of innovation is that government funds basic science while industry comes up with new and innovative products based on that science.

This model has worked well.

Over the past 40 years, 153 new FDA approved drugs and vaccines were discovered through research carried out at public institutions with federal funds.

And in the last 20 years alone, one out of every five important medical advances approved by the FDA was invented in a federally funded lab.

Those inventions, which included 40 new drugs for cancer, are currently generating more than $100 billion a year in sales for drug and biotechnology firms.

This includes drugs like Herceptin for breast cancer, Avastin for lung cancer, and Gleevec for gastrointestinal stromal tumors that inhibit and/or block cancer cell growth. 

And this research, in cancer alone, supports over 1300 clinical trials each year for promising new therapies for more than 200,000 cancer patients.

President Nixon, a Republican, recognized the importance of a sustained public commitment in basic research when he signed the National Cancer Act in 1971.

And last year, under President Obama, $5 billion dollars was provided to the National Cancer Institute to continue that mission.

This funding bill would take us back years, decreasing the NIH budget by 5%,  disrupting this tremendously successful innovation model.

The only failure in research is when you quit or are forced to quit due to lack of funding. 

Our sustained commitment to biomedical research is vital to the community I serve in Western New York – where approximately $100 million in federal funding supports research each year.

Institutions like Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute, the University at Buffalo, and companies along the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus all rely on this funding to conduct research and translate that research to new treatments and products to improve life quality.

The cuts proposed would not only hurt these institutions and small businesses, it would hurt the entire Buffalo community that is just beginning to realize the tremendous economic potential of this research.

Alleviating suffer due to diseases like cancer in our lifetime should be Congress’s goal.

This Continuing Resolution falls dangerously short.   I urge my colleague to oppose it.

I yield back the balance of my time.