Nomination of Vivek Hallegere Murthy to be Medical Director in the Ragular Corps of the Public Health Service, Subject to Qualifications Therefor as Provided by Law and Regulations, and to be Surgeon General of the Public Health Service
Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be here today to speak on behalf of President Obama's eminently qualified nominee to be Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy.
I request that I be permitted to yield to my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, at the end of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. The Surgeon General of the United States is a person of public trust in this country who has a long and eminent record of informing the Nation and fighting on behalf of the public health of Americans. He has addressed some of the Nation's most pressing public health problems. Over time, there have been a variety of people in that position of public trust to address some of the most pressing public health problems in this Nation. Those challenges have included nicotine addiction, the menaces of Big Tobacco, AIDS, and other emerging diseases, nutrition and food labeling. These challenges require someone of courage and expertise, indeed eminence as a public health warrior.
In just a few months, the Nation has faced a public health crisis that caused many to question who would be that warrior, that fighter, that eminent and expert physician, and who would defend this Nation at a time of public health crisis.
Many decried President Obama's appointment of an Ebola czar to fill that position when no one could step forward as Surgeon General, and the reason is that there was no Surgeon General. We lacked someone who could fulfill that role because of a misplaced and misguided opposition. That position has been vacant for far too long. Hopefully today we will confirm Dr. Murthy and allow him to get on the job and get to work on this and other pressing problems facing our country.
Ebola cases continue to present a dire threat to our Nation because in parts of Africa they are still spreading. Just last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that there are serious doubts about whether the Nation's supply of flu vaccine will be effective against the strain of flu that is circulating this winter. We need a Surgeon General to handle that potential public health crisis as well. We are not out of the woods, to quote what Dr. Frieden told me in a conversation just last week on Ebola. We are about to go into the woods in the flu season, and the Surgeon General, as a leader, is needed right now.
The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, under the leadership of the Attorney General, was deployed to field hospitals and emergency clinics in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon oilspill, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. They are fighters and warriors for public health as well.
Dr. Murthy's credentials are without question. They are impeccable, unquestionable, and indisputable. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale School of Medicine. He completed his residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He is one of our country's most respected medical professionals. He now works and teaches at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He also earned an MBA, also from Yale. He has been a leader of business and nonprofit organizations that work on many aspects of medical practice, biotechnology and domestic and international public health issues.
If the question were only about his qualifications, he would be in that position right now, confirmed by the Senate, but unfortunately he has been blocked. The only point raised against him, unconscionably and unnecessarily, is a political smokescreen, essentially, going to comments he has made about gun violence as a public health issue.
The simple fact is gun violence impacts far too many people. It destroys far too many lives. It is the second leading cause of death in this country after car crashes. Gun violence kills twice as many children as cancer, 5 times as many children as heart disease, and 15 times as many children as infection. Between 2000 and 2010, more than 335,000 people died as a result of gun violence.
Pointing out these facts and asking whether there are strategies we could apply to bring that number down is exactly what a person tasked to keep Americans healthy ought to be doing. But he has said he is going to focus on issues that concern the American public health and will be a fighter for American children, for Americans, against heart disease and cancer and other kinds of issues that affect public health, especially of children, and that is to be valued.
That smokescreen about gun violence should not have blocked him and should not impede this body voting for him today, approving him as Surgeon General because of his qualifications and because he will contribute enormously to make Americans healthier and safer in this country.
I am enthusiastically and proudly a supporter of him, and I ask my colleagues to approve him as Surgeon General of the United States to make America safer and healthier and to reject the slick smokescreen that has tried to stop him.
I yield to my colleague from Connecticut.
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored and proud to follow the majority leader, and I thank him for his remarks. I will make my remarks in support of my request for unanimous consent.
If there is an objection, in deference to the Senator from Oklahoma, I will withhold the body of my remarks until after there is an objection.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 5059, the Clay Hunt SAV Act, which was received from House and is at the desk; and further, that the bill be read three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
I will proceed at the conclusion of any remarks by the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Ohio.
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to respond to the Senator from Oklahoma by, first of all, expressing my deep respect and appreciation for the work he has done to hold accountable the Veterans' Administration and many other agencies of our U.S. Government. In fact, he leaves a legacy of oversight that I will be honored to continue and I hope will continue through the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
The efforts of the Senator from Oklahoma to scrutinize government spending through individual and independent assessments, in fact, are addressed in this bill in section 2, which requires, in fact, an independent third party to annually evaluate the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish metrics, to identify the cost-effectiveness of programs, and to propose best practices. Holding the VA accountable is one of the core purposes of this bill.
I am asking that the Senate take up a bill that was passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and that is supported on a bipartisan basis by 21 of our colleagues, that is blocked by a single Member, and that will make an impact on the spreading scourge of suicides among some of our very bravest and best warriors. We don't know--it remains a mystery--how some of our most courageous and steadfast warfighters can stare down death on the battlefield and succumb to it at home by their own hand. Those demons, those inner doubts, the invisible wounds of war, post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury are taking their toll at the rate of 22 a day.
This measure is actually scaled back. It is targeted and focused to provide incremental benefits to those veterans who are at risk by providing additional resources--psychiatrists and counselors--by mandating accountability in the use of those resources. That is more than we did 3 1/2 months ago in another measure I strongly supported.
I express my appreciation to our 21 colleagues who have supported this measure but also to the IAVA and the VFW, to the survivors of veterans' suicides across the country and their families, and the families who came before us in the committee such as Susan Selke's, whose son, Clay Hunt, is in the name of this bill. Susan Selke urged us to pass this legislation that will provide for an independent and strong source of accountability, because she believes it is necessary to help others such as her son before they succumb, as her son did.
That kind of outside review to impose discipline on the VA is, as my colleague has said, absolutely necessary not only for the VA but for VA clinics and hospitals
around the country. But we need more psychiatrists in those VA clinics and hospitals, and this measure will provide those resources, along with accountability.
In one of his most recent reports, my colleague from Oklahoma highlighted the appalling case of Dr. Margaret Moxness, and I thank him for that report and others he has authored.
Dr. Margaret Moxness, a former physician at the Huntington VA Medical Center in Charleston, West Virginia, said that when she reported patients who needed immediate mental health treatment, supervisors instructed her to delay care anyway. She saw at least two patients commit suicide while waiting for treatment between psychological appointments.
I share my colleagues' view that we cannot simply hire our way out of this problem. We have a nationwide shortage of mental health care professionals, and that is why this legislation, in section 4, grows a pool of psychiatrists through tuition assistance, and that is why in section 6 it requires the VA to collaborate with outside nonprofit mental health organizations to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of suicide prevention efforts.
This scaled-back bill is a down payment. It is not the end of solutions to this problem. It is a worthwhile measure that takes limited, targeted steps. Much more can and should be done. It has been championed by Chairman Sanders, and I thank him and Ranking Member Burr for their efforts in the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act. This job will not be done until we end every suicide--not just the 22 every day, but every one of those 22 every day in this country.
Every single one of us, if we are honest with ourselves, knows a family that has been touched by this problem--every single Member of this body. I know it all too well because a friend of mine, Justin Eldridge of southeastern Connecticut succumbed to suicide as well. He was deployed in combat in Afghanistan where he braved mortar fire and sniper fire, and he returned to his family, his children, and his wife--his very young family--suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. As brave as he had been on the battlefield, he could not win that war at home. He sought mental health care at the Connecticut VA facility. He had gone through a long battle for benefits. I helped him with it. But there was a significant gap in the continuity of his medical care. Basically, he slipped through the cracks and eventually took his life.
I knew him as the founder of the Marine Corps League in southeastern Connecticut, which I was proud to join as a member. How he fell into that black hole of depression and despair I certainly will never understand. But I hope someone could have understood it if we had provided the kinds of resources that are necessary in Connecticut and around the country. We have an obligation to leave none of these veterans behind, to hold the VA accountable, to make sure the resources are well spent, to avoid duplication, but to reach out to those brave and fearless warriors who fight on our battlefields and defend our Nation, and then are threatened and sometimes lose the war at home to post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries--medical conditions that can be overcome with the right care as soon as possible.
I hope my colleague from Oklahoma will withdraw his objection. I thank my colleagues for supporting this measure. If it fails this time, we will bring it back and we will win and leave no one behind.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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