Share This Page Slashdot Del.icio.us Google Digg Reddit Newsvine Furl Yahoo Facebook

Washington, Oct 9, 2000 -  

Back in May, I wrote about a bill passed by the House of Representatives aimed at improving the health of our nation’s children.  H.R. 4365, the Children’s Health Act of 2000, passed the House with broad bi-partisan support by a vote of 419-2.  I supported this important legislation, and I am happy to report that it recently passed the Senate and has been sent to the President to be signed into law. 

The Children’s Health Act is a comprehensive package of children’s health bills that addresses a wide variety of health needs of America’s young people from prenatal care to the dangers of teenage drug abuse.  The bill establishes programs for children’s health research and prevention activities conducted through federal public health agencies.  Childhood diseases such as autism,
asthma, and juvenile diabetes will receive funding for detection and prevention.  The bill also authorizes grants to adoption organizations to develop programs to train personnel at both family planning clinics and federally funded health centers in counseling pregnant women about adoption.  The program is a step in the right direction to eliminate the anti-adoption bias in pregnancy counseling. 

Further, the Children’s Health Act reauthorizes the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) which administers youth drug treatment, early intervention, and substance abuse prevention programs.  Finally, it establishes a new Pediatric Research Initiative within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and authorizes additional federal resources targeted at fighting autism, fragile X, birth defects, early hearing loss, epilepsy, asthma, juvenile arthritis, childhood malignancies, juvenile diabetes, traumatic brain injury, Healthy Start, hepatitis C and autoimmune diseases. 
  
The Children’s Health Act has received the support of many children’s and health advocacy groups inluding: the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs; the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses; the Autism Society of America; the Developmental Disabilities Research Centers Association; Easter Seals; the Epilepsy Foundation; Hep C Connection; the International Brain Injury Association; the March of Dimes; the Parent Project for Muscular Dystrophy Research; and the Arthritis Foundation 

As a parent, I know how important it is to ensure the health and well-being of our children through increased knowledge, early detection, and prevention activities.  As a legislator, I will be charged with very few duties as meaningful as seeing that our government protects its youngest citizens.  I am pleased to have supported the Children’s Health Act of 2000.