Tsunami Warning, Education, and Research Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his extraordinary leadership on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, in 1992, 24 years ago, I met--along with a great advocate, Pat Smith--with top officials of NIH and CDC on Federal guidelines that precluded the existence of chronic Lyme disease. Subsequently, every Congress, I would introduce legislation trying to get a diversity of viewpoints so that clinicians, patients, and other advocates could be heard.

Today, CDC estimates there are about 380,000 cases of Lyme disease; and a provision in this bill, an important, game-changing provision, insisted upon by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Chairman Upton requires that a new working group on tickborne disease includes members with a diversity of viewpoints, including patients, clinicians, and researchers. This working group will make a difference. Those patients--and there are tens of thousands of them--have been told chronic Lyme disease doesn't exist, what you are feeling can be attributable
to some other disease, and they don't get better.

I thank the chairman for doing this. Also, as cofounder and co- chairman of both the Alzheimer's Caucus 16 years ago and the Autism Caucus 16 years ago, I am thankful for the great work that this will do for those patients as well.

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