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Floor Speech
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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, it was 2 years ago this month that I stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and was the first person to speak about a novel coronavirus, soon to be called COVID-19. Two years ago, I had been reading about this virus for several weeks, and something in my gut as a physician told me this was not going to be a common cold. I chatted with the CDC, and I implored them to start doing research on the origins of the virus, asking ``Was it from nature or from a laboratory?'' and that we needed to work on vaccines, therapeutics, and testing.
As we all know, the development of an American vaccine, thanks to Operation Warp Speed, was successful. As for the testing, we know the CDC fumbled it, but the private sector saved us. And therapeutics? Not so much. Therapeutics have never been a priority for this administration.
As we return to our Nation's Capital, I would venture to say that very few Americans didn't have somebody in their families catch Omicron, and my family was no different. We shared the same experience as millions of other Americans did. Despite being vaccinated, one of my loved ones with underlying healthcare conditions caught the Omicron virus. As I saw my loved one start having asthma, wheezing, and become short of breath, I did what every spouse would do and said: Well, we need to go get tested. We need to talk to a doctor.
So we drove to several testing sites, and we had the option of standing in line for 3 or 4 hours with sick people. If we didn't have the Omicron, we certainly would have by the time we left. We called around and finally were able to get an appointment the next day for testing.
I am not sure if you have ever seen a person with asthma, but you can see the distress in their face as they wheeze, as they become short of breath. This is something with which I am all too familiar. I have taken care of thousands of women, pregnant women, with asthma. I have been in the emergency room with them, having to admit them to the ICU, and I knew that was the road that we were headed to.
I called around, hoping to find some monoclonal antibodies--a place where we could go and we could get monoclonal antibodies. Then there is this new miracle of biotherapeutics out there. I thought, well, maybe we could get those, but none were to be had.
In watching my wife continue to suffer, I decided, you know, I think we need to do some type of telemedicine. So we called a doctor and set up a telemedicine visit--someone who had taken care of thousands of patients with the coronavirus. We did the appointment, and he prescribed Ivermectin for her. After the first tablet, it was a miracle. Within an hour, her labored breathing had settled down. By the next day, her second dose, she was almost completely better right before my eyes.
Again, I remind everybody it has been 2 years since this pandemic started, and we still have limited access to therapeutics. Again, as we all know, the Biden administration's approach to this is to put all of their eggs in one basket. They believed in a one-size-fits-all approach. Vaccine mandates, masks, and testing was their prescription to getting us through this pandemic. All of those have had a place, and all of them have had some successes, but when a million people in 1 day are testing positive, it is not surprising we can't keep up with the testing, and that is why we need therapeutics.
In fact, the Federal Government has allocated over $80 billion for testing--$80 billion for testing--and only $15 billion for therapeutics. This is simply unacceptable. We are 2 years into this pandemic, and we have only spent $15 billion on therapeutics. The Biden administration should have already established an Operation-Warp-Speed approach to the development, manufacturing, and distribution of therapeutics.
It just always seems like this administration has been a day late and a dollar short. For example, in mid-2021, we saw the Delta wave coming. We all knew it was coming, and we had real-world evidence in the summer of 2021 to suggest that a booster shot would be helpful for seniors and at-risk individuals. It was in June of 2020 that I asked the CDC and the FDA to consider letting physicians meet with their patients and prescribe a booster ahead of the Delta wave--again, in the summer of 2020.
Unfortunately, the FDA waited until September 22 to approve the booster. Between June and September, more than 11,000 seniors died from breakthrough infections, while more than 230,000 people tested positive. No doubt, a booster and/or therapeutics could have made a big difference in these seniors' lives.
It is easy to talk about the mistakes we have made with this virus. I want to spend a moment talking about solutions, though.
We need to unleash our community health centers and our county health departments in this COVID-19 fight. They have been the backbone of vaccination and treatment for communicable diseases for decades.
Once the Biden administration agrees to prioritize therapeutics, we need community health centers and county health departments to take over the telemedicine visits with trained nurses and implement treatment protocols across the United States.
In Kansas alone, we have over 200 community health centers and clinics funded with Federal dollars, along with over 100 local health departments that are accustomed to dealing with infectious diseases on a daily basis. These folks can implement these protocols based upon triaging at-risk individuals and starting early treatment. This will prevent many trips to the ER, as well as hospitalizations. Early treatment is what works.
Finally, and this goes without saying, I trust these nurses to make necessary referrals to the emergency room. They can do this. How do I know it? I have worked with these nurses for 30 years. I helped sponsor--was the medical director for three county health departments for almost 30 years. They do an incredible job. They are well equipped to handle this effort, but they need the Biden administration to move on therapeutics and move fast.
The medicines you could get for less than $100 can oftentimes prevent hospitalizations and ICU visits. We need to give doctors the options of using therapeutics, along with steroids, anti-inflammatories, and other standard protocols that have been developed by these physicians who have treated literally thousands of COVID-19 patients.
Certainly, if we have better access to monoclonal antibodies or if these new miracle antiviral agents were available, we could use them as well. But, please, let's empower physicians and these health departments and community health centers, these experienced nurses, to do their job.
Time is precious. We cannot afford additional delays. We can't afford more confusion, more mixed messaging, and more mixed management. The Biden administration must let patients and physicians decide what is best in their unique healthcare situation, not somebody who is sitting on a throne in Washington, DC, who seldom sees patients in the real world.
Thank you.
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