Dave Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the numbers from the month of May reveal that the American people are improving their lives under the leadership of George W. Bush and the Republican Congress. Two-hundred-and-forty-eight thousand jobs were created in May, and more than 1 million jobs have been created over the last 100 days. The unemployment rate is down to 5.6 percent. This is lower than the averages in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Homeownership has risen to the highest level ever at 68.6 percent. Real disposable personal income is up 3.9 percent. Consumer confidence is up and business investment in equipment and software is up at an annual rate of 14 percent, and the stock market is up 18 percent. Now, some Republicans may try to take all the credit for the economic growth we have been witnessing. However, we can only take credit for freeing up the American people from the burdens of high taxes and government intrusion. We Republicans removed those barriers, and the economy improved due to the ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to make this a 5-minute vote.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to address the House regarding the very important issue of autism and the epidemic of autism that we are seeing in this country today, but before I begin my prepared remarks on this subject, I want to extend my condolences to the family of Paul Johnson. His son lives in Merritt Island, an area in my congressional district, and it is indeed a great tragedy for our Nation and very obviously a great tragedy for his family. As I understand it, he was a great person, a great American, a patriotic American, and it goes to show to all of us that the war on terror continues and that there is a great peril to American contractors, probably anywhere in the Middle East, but particularly in Saudi Arabia and, obviously, as we know, in Iraq. I do want to salute those contractors that do take the risk and go over there. They perform vital functions. In many ways, they are as important as our military people over there and we need to honor them and respect them. So my condolences go out to the Johnson family, and certainly I hope that they will be comforted by the good Lord in their time of grief. I would like to take this time to address what I consider to be a very growing problem, the epidemic of autism and neurodevelopmental disorders that are plaguing our Nation. In January of this year, the Department of Health and Human Services sent out an autism alarm to the Nation's pediatricians. In this alarm, they stated that one in every 167 children is being diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. I will repeat that. One in every 167 children being born in the United States today is being diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder. Furthermore, one in seven children is being diagnosed with either a learning disability or a behavioral disability. Mr. Speaker, something dreadful is happening to our youngest generation, and we must sound the alarm and figure out what is going on with our children. I had the pleasure of addressing an autism conference in Chicago last month, and I would like to share today some of the thoughts I shared then with about 1,000 researchers, doctors, nurses, educators and, most importantly, parents who were there to seek answers to this growing problem. I have said repeatedly that the autism community is the 900-pound gorilla that has not had its voice properly heard on Capitol Hill. This is largely due to the endless demands on the time, effort, emotions and financial resources of the parents of these children who are struggling to meet the unique needs of these kids with autism. There is little time, money, energy left to engage in public debates, let alone engage the Congress when one is trying to raise a child with a disability like autism. However, I see that changing, and last month's Institute of Medicine report I think has had one positive effect. It has united and reinvigorated parents throughout the country in their efforts to get answers to why children are being diagnosed with autism at such a high rate in the United States. At the outset of my remarks, I want to make it extremely clear that I support vaccinations. I have a six-year-old son, and he has received all of his vaccinations. Someone in the media recently tried to portray me as a vaccine skeptic. After reviewing my record on this issue and all of my statements in the past, the newspaper printed a retraction. This, however, seems to be part of the pattern, to vilify those who simply ask if our vaccines could be made safer. I support vaccinations, and indeed, I gave vaccinations to thousands of my patients when I was practicing medicine full-time prior to coming to the U.S. House. However, I believe it is appropriate to acknowledge that like with any other medical intervention, different individuals respond differently. We are all unique. We all have different genetic makeup, and what may cause no harm to the vast majority of people can cause serious side effects in some individuals. Since we established the National Vaccine Compensation Program in the late 1980s, several thousand individuals have been compensated for vaccine injuries. We know that there are adverse reactions, and I believe it is important that we dedicate resources to better understand why some children have these reactions. For too long, those who run our national vaccination program have viewed those who have adverse reactions, including those with severe adverse reactions, as the cost of doing business. Furthermore, the vaccine compensation program, which was designed to be a no-fault compensation system, has become so adversarial that only the most obvious cases receive compensation, and too many parents feel that the program is not worth the difficulty of going through it. The questions I raise are multiple. The number one question has been whether neurologic problems were caused in some children by the high levels of a mercury containing additive that was included in our vaccines in the 1990s. This mercury containing additive is called thimerosol, and in the 1990s, infants and unborn children were exposed to significant amounts of mercury at a most critical point in their development. Now, this recent Institute of Medicine report, what exactly is wrong with it? What about it has so many people in the autism community upset? In my 10 years of service in the U.S. Congress, I have never seen a report so badly miss the mark. I have heard some weak arguments here in Washington, D.C., and I can tell my colleagues that the arguments put forward in this IOM report are indeed very weak. Let us examine this report in some detail. On January 15 of this year, I wrote Dr. Julie Gerberding, the director of CDC, and I asked her to postpone the February 9 Institute of Medicine meeting and this report because of my concern that this was not an exercise in discovering the truth, but was instead a meeting, and I will quote what I said in my letter, ``being driven by a desire to shortcircuit important research and draw premature conclusions.'' I said, ``If the purpose of this meeting is to seriously consider and address these concerns, then this will not be accomplished.'' Quoting further from my letter to Dr. Gerberding, I said, ``It appears to me, not only as a member of Congress but also as a physician, that some officials within the CDC's National Immunization Program, the NIP, may be more interested in a public relations campaign than getting to the truth about Thimerosal.'' I said, ``Pressing forward with this meeting at this time I believe will further undermine the credibility of the Centers for Disease Control on matters of vaccine safety and do damage to the reputation of the Institute of Medicine. I believe the proposed date of this meeting, which you have the ability to change, is in the best interest of no one who is seeking the truth about a possible association between vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism.'' Now, I had a follow-up conversation on February 3 of this year with Dr. Gerberding, and she assured me that the Institute of Medicine's February meeting was not an attempt to ``draw conclusions,'' but merely to ``update the science,'' of where we were, basically. However, it is clear that this report draws conclusions; and what is perhaps the greatest outrage, it goes further to call for the halt of further research. A public relations campaign, rather than sound science, seems to be the modus operandi of officials at the CDC's National Immunization Program. Why do I say this? Let us look not only at the timing of the IOM meeting in February, the content of the IOM report, but also at studies the IOM used as a basis for their decision. The Institute of Medicine bases their decision almost entirely on five epidemiologic studies. Epidemiology is essentially the statistical analysis of disease in populations. All of these studies were conducted by researchers with an interest in not finding an association. All of the studies had significant shortcomings, all of which the IOM itself declares would miss the association with autism in a genetically acceptable subset of children. Not only the timing of the IOM meeting raises suspicions but also the narrowing of the scope of inquiry and the emphasis the IOM placed just on epidemiology. In 2001 the Institute of Medicine concludes: ``Exposure to Thimerosal-containing vaccines could be associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.'' The IOM also recommended that children not be given mercury-containing vaccines. What was the response of the CDC? For this most recent report, they narrowed the IOM scope to looking just at autism. Does that sound like an agency interested in understanding whether or not Thimerosal is harmful to some children, or does this response lead one to conclude that they are more interested in designing something to reassure an increasingly skeptical public? Unlike 2001, this time the IOM was directed by the CDC to only consider the possible relationship between Thimerosal and autism rather than neurodevelopmental disorders as a whole. Anyone familiar with the Verstraeten study, a study published looking at Thimerosal and autism, knows exactly why the IOM scope was narrow, because the 2003 Verstraeten study found associations between Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders in some children with autism may have been misdiagnosed as having speech or language delay. By narrowing the scope, which largely went unnoticed by the media, the CDC has avoided acknowledging that Thimerosal very well may have caused neurodevelopmental disorders in some children. This latest IOM report is simply part of a PR campaign, in my view. Would we not have had a much more productive report if the CDC had updated the research on possible associations between Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders as a whole? In evaluating Thimerosal's relationship to autism, the IOM relies almost exclusively on these five epidemiologic studies. The principal authors of all five of these studies have serious conflicts of interest. All five studies were published in 2003, leading up to the IOM's February 2004 meeting. All were conducted while the CDC and the NIH virtually ignored the Institute of Medicine's 2001 biological and clinical research recommendations. It is critical to note the instructions that the IOM was given, primarily by the CDC, which has been funding the IOM. Pages 5 and 6 of the IOM report make it clear that epidemiology was to reign supreme. In the absence of epidemiologic evidence to support causality, the IOM was instructed to give biological evidence little consideration and was prohibited from allowing biological evidence to lend evidence towards causality. Is it any wonder that the CDC has spent the past 2 years dedicating significant funding to epidemiology while starving funding for clinical and biological research? The IOM notes in their report that the epidemiologic studies they examined were not designed to pick up a genetically susceptible population, and this is the very theory of the link between Thimerosal and autism and autism spectrum disorders. One in 167 become autistic. Why do the other 166 not? It is because they do not have the impaired ability to eliminate mercury from their system. We are looking at a genetically susceptible subpopulation. Yet these studies that they base this report on, they admit, were not capable of picking up these subsets in the populations. Let us look at these studies. The only study done in the United States, the Verstraeten study, was published in the Journal of Pediatrics in November of last year. Much has been written exposing the study's methodological problems, findings, and conclusions. Most importantly, however, is that this study did not compare children who got Thimerosal to those who did not. Instead, its CDC-employed authors focused primarily on what is called a dose response gradient. Those who got less Thimerosal later in life had less autism is the theory behind the study. In addition to the study itself, it is important to note the public relations spin surrounding this study. On the day the Verstraeten study was released, a top CDC researcher and coauthor of the study was quick to declare to the news media: ``The final results of the study show no statistical association between Thimerosal vaccines and harmful health outcomes in children, in particular autism and attention deficit disorder.'' Let me repeat that: The final results of the study show no statistical association between Thimerosal vaccines and harmful health outcomes in children, in particular autism and attention deficit disorder. The newspaper headlines of the day read: ``Study Clears Vaccine Containing Mercury,'' the Associated Press and USA Today. ``CDC Says Vaccines Are Safe,'' the Seattle Times. While that was the spin of the day, allow me to quote from the study: ``We found no consistent significant associations between Thimerosal- containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes. In the first phase of our study, we found an association between exposure to mercury from Thimerosal-containing vaccines and some of the neurodevelopmental outcomes screened. In the second phase, these associations were not replicated for the most common disorders in an independent population. They did find associations, but they changed the study and most of the associations disappeared. Furthermore, in January 2004, the lead coauthor was forced to admit that many children in the study were too young to have received an autism diagnosis. He went on to admit that the study also likely mislabeled young autistic children as having other disabilities, thus masking the number of children with autism. The message from the CDC to the media was that there is nothing to be concerned about, but the study said something different. The news media to a large degree took the CDC's spin hook, line and sinker. Largely they chose not to read the study itself. Five months after that study was published in the Journal of Pediatrics and, I might add, after the IOM report was largely written, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten broke his silence in a letter to Pediatrics stating, ``The bottom line is and has always been the same, an association between Thimerosal and neurological outcomes could neither be confirmed nor refuted and therefore more study is required,'' is what Dr. Thomas Verstraeten said. Dr. Verstraeten, the lead author of this study, says that an association between Thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders cannot be refuted based on his study. Yet the IOM in their assessment of that same study states that it is a basis for concluding, ``There is no association between Thimerosal- containing vaccines and autism.'' The IOM acknowledges that Verstraeten would not have picked up an association in a genetically susceptible population. The IOM also noted that the study was limited in its ability to answer whether Thimerosal in vaccines causes autism because the study tests a dose response gradient, not exposure versus no exposure. I might also add, Mr. Speaker, that the Verstraeten study cannot be validated. The earlier data sets have been destroyed, and the only data sets the CDC will make available to outside researchers are the ones they have already manipulated. The raw, unaltered data is not available. Additionally, outside researchers are held to a much more restrictive access to information than are the CDC researchers. Only one independent researcher has been granted access to the CDC's VSD database, and the CDC has kicked that researcher out based on ridiculous reasons. They claim their research methods might infringe on privacy, yet they know the database contains no names and it is impossible to locate the patients from this database. I want to talk briefly about the other four studies that the Institute of Medicine based its conclusions on. The IOM cited the 2003 Hviid study of the Danish population as one of the key studies upon which it based its conclusions. Let us first consider the conflict of interest of the principal author. Dr. Hviid works for the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, which is housed at the Staten Serum Institute, the government-owned Danish vaccine manufacturer. Also, all of his coauthors either work with him at the center or are employed by the SSI. The SSI, the Staten Serum Institute, makes a considerable profit off the sales of vaccine and vaccine components and the U.S. is a major market for the SSI. SSI has $120 million in annual revenue, and vaccines are the fastest-growing business segment, accounting for 80 percent of its profits. Both the United States and the United Kingdom are important export markets for SSI's vaccines and vaccine components. Furthermore, if Hviid were to find an association between Thimerosal and autism, SSI, with which he and his center are affiliated, would then face significant lawsuits. These facts are important and are critical when evaluating Dr. Hviid's work. Furthermore, this study looked at autism and not at neurodevelopmental disorders. The important thing in evaluating this study is that exposure in the Danish population to Thimerosal varied considerably from that in the United States. Danish children received 75 micrograms of mercury in their first 9 weeks of life and then another 50 micrograms at 10 months. By comparison, children in the United States received 187.5 micrograms of mercury by the age of 6 months, nearly 2\1/2\ times as much mercury as the Danish population. Dr. Boyd Haley has said that comparing the exposure of the U.S. children to these children in Denmark is like comparing apples and cows. I think there is a lot of truth to that. Hviid states that the rate of autism went up after they began removing Thimerosal from vaccines in 1992. The numbers in Hviid's study were skewed in that they began to add outpatient autism diagnoses after 1992. The IOM notes other limitations of the study, including the differences in the dosing schedule and the relative genetic homogeneity of the Danish population; yet even with all these serious limitations, the IOM felt that the study had ``strong internal validity.'' Like the Verstraten study, Hviid would not be able to pick up a group of children who were genetically susceptible to mercury toxicity, principally because they have impaired ability to excrete mercury. Case in point: Danish autism rates are six in 10,000, where in the United States it is less than one in 200. I do not believe how they can use a Danish study as a valid conclusion to say that thimerosal did not cause the increase in autism and other autism spectrum disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders in the United States when children in the United States received significantly more mercury exposure. Another study that the Institute of Medicine relied on was the Madsen study. Madsen et al., once again examined virtually the same population, Danish children, Danish children who received significantly less than they. Let us consider the conflicts of interest in the Madsen study. First of all, two of Madsen's co-authors are employed by the same Staten Serum Institute. The study, like Hviid, added outpatient cases into the number of cases of autism after 1995, a methodological flaw. The authors acknowledged that this addition might have exaggerated the incidence of autism after the removal of autism. The IOM acknowledged this but yet used the data anyway. Another study that the IOM relied on, the Stehr-Green study, examined, guess what, the Danish population again, along with the Swedish population. I will not repeat the problems with the Danish data, but with regard to Sweden it is important to note that the children there received even less thimerosal than children in Denmark, receiving only 75 micrograms by 2 years of age versus children in the United States receiving 187.5 micrograms by 6 months of age. Furthermore, the authors included only inpatient autism diagnoses in the Swedish population. The IOM notes that the ecological nature of this data ``limits the study's contribution to causality,'' but they cite it anyway. The Miller study also included in the IOM report examines the population of children in the United Kingdom. This study is still unpublished, which limits its ability to be examined critically. It is important to note, however, that Dr. Miller has actively campaigned against those who have raised questions about vaccine safety. We have a person here who is actively campaigning, testifying in lawsuits, against the theory that thimerosal is linked to neurodevelopmental disorders and autism, doing a study supposedly showing there is no link. So what can we conclude about these five epidemiologic studies? We can see clearly why the IOM is on very shaky ground in drawing the conclusion that it did. They based their decision on these five studies, three of them examining genetically homogenous children in Denmark. At least one employee of the Staten Serum Institute serves as a co-author on three of the studies. Only one study examines the U.S. population, and that study did not compare children who had received mercury with those who had not. Four of them are studies of children receiving less than half the amount of mercury that U.S. children received. None of them with any ascertainment of prenatal or postnatal background mercury exposures, none of them considering prenatal exposure which may have been given to the children, none of them have been able to detect a susceptible subgroup in the population, three of them failing to address how the addition of outpatient cases of autism in Denmark might have previously skewed their results. Four of them examined populations with autism rates considerably less than the United States, and one of these studies has never been published. It is impossible to review the data. Might I also add they are all statistical studies. There have been numerous biological studies suggesting that thimerosal is linked, mercury is linked to autism, specifically mercury studies that show after chelation therapy, children with autism excrete a tremendous amount of mercury in their urine, whereas normal children do not. And it is important to note that there was a recent report published by Dr. Emili Garcia-Berthou and Dr. Carlos Alcaraz examining statistical errors in medical publications. They found five volumes of Nature and 11 volumes of the British Medical Journal. They found 11 percent of the computations in Nature and the BMJ were incongruent and at least one statistical error appeared in 38 percent of the papers, despite all the biological evidence suggesting there may be a link with thimerosal and autism here and the obvious knowledge that many of these statistical studies are flawed. The Institute of Medicine concluded, and many people in the press believed it, that there is no link. Mr. Speaker, something needs to be done. The Institute of Medicine report not only looked at the mercury issue. It as well looked at the issue of the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Many years ago a researcher in England, a Dr. Andrew Wakefield, published a report suggesting that some children with autism have measles virus growing in their intestines causing a condition called inflammatory bowel disease, and, indeed, there have been recent reports in the medical literature that some of these children have measles virus particles in their cerebral spinal fluid and elevations of a protein called myelin basic protein in their cerebral spinal fluid, suggesting they have an active low-grade encephalitis being caused by measles virus. The IOM was asked to look at this issue. How did they approach this issue? Did they ask for research protocols that attempted to duplicate the Wakefield study? No. What they did was again another epidemiologic study. I believe that the CDC's conclusion and the Institute of Medicine's conclusion on the MMR is well flawed. I am pleased that finally attempt is underway to duplicate Dr. Wakefield's findings, and hopefully we can get some answers to these questions regarding the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. For the reasons that I have outlined above and other reasons, the Institute of Medicine report I believe is premature, perilously reliant on epidemiology, based on preliminary and incomplete information, and I believe may ultimately be repudiated perhaps in short order. This report will not deter me nor the autism community from our commitment to see that thimerosal and MMR research is properly done. This report will do nothing to put to rest the concerns of parents who believe their children were harmed by mercury-containing vaccines or the MMR vaccine. While this report will lead many clinicians to believe that thimerosal is safe and there are no problems with the MMR, it may contribute further to an erosion of the doctor/patient relationship in the United States. This report has dragged the Institute of Medicine under a cloud of controversy that has currently engulfed the CDC. Much like the infamous 1989 study by the National Institute of Child and Human Development which missed the link between folic acid deficiencies and neural tube defects like spina bifida, the epidemiologic studies reviewed by the IOM in drawing these findings could easily have missed an association in susceptible populations. Finally, let us remember that the IOM is not immune to error and has been forced to reverse itself before. Most recently, the IOM reversed a longstanding finding that chronic lymphocytic leukemia was not due to Agent Orange exposure. A similar reversal is very real and possible here. On April 2 of this year, I introduced, along with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), H.R. 4169, the Mercury Free Vaccines Act of 2004. We currently have 22 co-sponsors from across the political spectrum. H.R. 4169 will phase out the use of mercury vaccines over the next 3 years, giving particular attention to completely eliminating mercury from childhood vaccines on an expedited schedule. This bill is a response to the fact that the safety of thimerosal in vaccines is not proven. Mercury is a well established neurotoxin. According to the EPA, one in six newborns is born with a blood mercury level considered unsafe. The FDA and the EPA recently warned pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children to limit their consumption of certain fish. No one at the NIH or CDC can tell us what happens to mercury once injected into an infant. Where does it go? How much goes to the critical organs, how much to the brain? Can it cause damage to the developing central nervous system? No one has good answers to these questions, and they should have answers to these questions before more infants are exposed to mercury. The CDC has adopted a policy to reintroduce mercury-containing vaccines to children in the form of the flu vaccine which will be given at 6 months, 7 months, and 23 months of age. Most of the flu vaccine on the market today contains mercury. I believe we need new legislation. It is critical that we pass the Mercury Free Vaccines Act of 2004. It is also critical, I believe, that we make improvements in how we monitor for and respond to adverse reactions to vaccines. Today there are three government agencies that have responsibilities related to monitoring the safety of vaccines: the FDA, the CDC, and the NIH. The Food and Drug Administration has responsibility primarily to make sure that the vaccines are prepared according to specifications. They do operate the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. The NIH does not have a concerted effort to fund vaccine safety research. They provide funding for research in a haphazard manner. If one happens to submit a proposal and it passes peer review, the study may get funded. The NIH has funded only a handful of studies over the past 2 years investigating vaccine safety issues. The CDC has the greatest responsibility in this area. Unfortunately, they have the greatest conflict of interest. The CDC's vaccine safety program amounts to a $30 million, million, a year program, and half of it goes to pay HMOs for access to the Vaccine Safety Database. The biggest conflict within the CDC is that they are also responsible for a $1 billion, $1 billion, vaccine promotion program. The CDC largely measures its success by high vaccination rates, and here lies the conflict. Any study raising concerns that there might be adverse reactions to some vaccines in some children has the ability to lower vaccine rates, and lower vaccination rates are in direct conflict with the CDC's top measurement of success. Clearly due to its overwhelming size and the manner in which the agency measures its success, the vaccine promotion program overshadows and influences the CDC's vaccine safety program. In fact, rightly or wrongly, the Vaccine Safety Office within the CDC is largely viewed by outside observers as nothing more than another arm of the vaccine promotion program, giving support to vaccine promotion policies and doing very little to investigate and better understand acute and chronic adverse reactions. Further complicating the CDC's role in undermining the research is the fact that the vaccine safety studies produced by the CDC are impossible to reproduce. External researchers are not granted the same level of access to the raw data sets that the CDC's internal researchers are granted. The bottom line is that the CDC studies related to vaccine safety cannot be validated by external researchers, a critical component in demonstrating the validity of scientific findings. The CDC's recently convened Blue Ribbon Panel to examine how the CDC might better review vaccine safety is a step in the right direction. However, I do not hold out much hope because the panel is limited in its scope. Much like the IOM was limited in the outcome they were allowed to draw, this panel is limited to deciding where within CDC vaccine safety monitoring should be housed. The NIH recently recognized the importance of moving patient safety monitoring out of the NIH. I believe the same should be done with vaccine monitoring. It should be completely removed from CDC's jurisdiction. The CDC is too conflicted to oversee this function. Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on one more additional issue, and that is something called the Brighton Collaboration. I am very concerned about the development of the Brighton Collaboration, which began in the year 2000. This is an international group comprised of public health officials from the CDC, Europe, and world health agencies like WHO and vaccine manufacturers. The first task of the Brighton Collaboration, created several years ago, was to define what constitutes an adverse reaction to a vaccine. They have established committees to work on various adverse reactions to vaccines. Particularly troubling to me is the fact that serving on these panels defining what constitutes an adverse reaction to a vaccine are the vaccine manufacturers. What is even worse is the fact that some of these committees are chaired by vaccine manufacturers. It is inappropriate for a manufacturer of vaccines to be put in the position of determining what is and what is not an adverse reaction to its product. Do we allow GM, Ford and Chrysler to define the safety of their automobiles? Do we let airlines set the safety standards for their airlines and determine the cause of an airline accident? Do we allow food processors to determine whether or not their food is contaminated or causing harm? Then, I ask, why are we allowing vaccine manufacturers to define what constitutes an adverse reaction to a vaccine? This collaboration is fraught with pitfalls, and merges regulators and the regulated into an indistinguishable group. It is critical that the American public look at what is going on here and how this entity may further erode the ability for us to fully understand the true relationship between various vaccines and some adverse reactions in some subsets of our population. I plan to devote additional attention to this effort in the future. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with you and others in this body to address the problem that we face today. As I stated at the outset of my comments this afternoon, autism was once in America a rare and infrequently seen condition. I went through 4 years of medical school, internship, residency, and years of private practice and practice within the military and had not seen one single case. I have seen case after case in my congressional district over the last 7 years, a disease that I had never seen before. The disease incidence was previously thought to be one in 10,000. It is now thought to be as high as possibly one in 167, an almost 100-fold increase in the incidence. We need to get answers to these questions. We need to restore public confidence and safety in our vaccine program. Our vaccine program saves millions of lives, it saves millions of kids from a life of disability, and the best way for us to ensure public confidence and make sure that all the kids get vaccinated properly is to get answers to these questions. The way the CDC and the Institute of Medicine and the industry is going about trying to answer these questions is highly flawed. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to begin to look at this issue. I know that many of them are coming to me saying they have parents coming in their offices now with autistic kids, saying something needs to be done. Something needs to be done.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. American citizens every summer are assaulted by increased prices at the pump. They need to know that one of the factors that drive those summer prices up is switching from one blend of gasoline for the whole country to more than 40 blends of gasoline for the whole country. And to say that we are repealing the Clean Air Act in this bill is absurd. The Clean Air Act is a big bill. It covers a whole bunch of issues. This is a small fraction of it. This recommendation to go over to three different types of cleaner fuels for the summer months is a recommendation that was made by a GAO study and it is a recommendation that is being currently put forward by the industry and it will help keep prices down and it will not cause the air to get dirtier or kids to get asthma. This is an absolute ridiculous assertion. It is the right thing for us to do for our Nation. The American consumer is suffering right now. Many families on a limited budget are having difficulty making ends meet. This is the right thing for us to do.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, many people have probably seen the recent news coverage about Nancy Reagan's hope to see more funding go to human embryo stem cell research in the hopes of finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease. Indeed, recently Newsweek ran a cover story on this issue. I am a physician, and I used to care for many patients with Alzheimer's disease, and I know first hand the anguish it causes to lose a loved one or to have a family member with this condition. I have three concerns that I would like to raise about this debate. First of all, I am concerned that advocates for this embryo stem cell research are unethically playing on the emotions of millions of Americans. Of all the conditions that have been proposed as possibly treatable with stem cells, whether embryonic or adult stem cells, Alzheimer's disease is one of the least likely where stem cells could be useful. I say this because on autopsy, the brains on Alzheimer's disease patients do not show a pure dropout of neurons. If it was a loss of normal nerve cells, cell therapy might have potential. The fact is the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients typically contain lesions called senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The plaques, which accumulate on the outside of neurons, consist mainly of deposits of a protein called beta-amyloid. Chemical and cellular markers of inflammation are also present. We need to find out what causes these plaques and how we can prevent them. It is not clear at all if the problem with Alzheimer's disease is treatable with cell replacement therapy. Most experts I have contacted feel that the more promising solution will be early detection, very early detection, and medication to prevent progression and not cell replacement therapy. Secondly, I am quite concerned that people are being falsely led to believe that it is only embryo stem cells that might have potential here. Mr. Speaker, the following diseases have been successfully treated with adult stem cells from humans: Parkinson's disease, blindness has been treated, relief of symptom of lupus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis; the cure of combined immunodeficiency diseases, the treatment of several different types of leukemia, solid tumors, neuroblastomas, non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, multiple sclerosis. Indeed, the list goes on and on. However, there have been no successful treatments of any humans with embryo stem cells, and, as I have said repeatedly on this floor, they do not have an animal model of successfully treating an animal with embryo stem cells. Indeed, it is unclear if they will ever have clinical usefulness. Last, I would like to say the President of the United States, George Bush, is unfairly being portrayed in the press as standing in the way of this research progressing. The truth is embryo stem cell research is perfectly legal in the United States today. The debate is who is going to fund this research. Many of us feel that this research should be funded by private dollars and not funded by the American taxpayer because, number one, it involves the destruction of a human embryo, a human life, and, number two, it is quite unclear if it will ever have any clinical significance. Indeed, some groups, I must say, are engaged in what I believe is deceptive communications on this issue. A case in point I will cite is the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The JDRF claims that embryo stem cell research is the most promising research. Their lobbying packet contains in its table of contents ``embryo stem cell research, stem cell research, our best hope for a cure.'' However, JDRF had a $80 million research and education budget. They only spent $3 million on embryo stem cells, which is 4 percent of their budget, but, Mr. Speaker, they spent $15 million, four times as much, 20 percent of their budget, on adult stem cell research. Why is the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation saying that embryo stem cell research has the most potential but they are spending four times as much money on adult stem cell research? The truth is we have a multi-billion dollar biotechnology industry in America today, and they are spending nothing on this research. The advocates for this research are clamoring to get the American taxpayer to pay for it. In my opinion, that is an insult to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, asking the Federal Government to pick up the tab for something of questionable value, when private industry would reap huge benefits if it really had the potential it did have. I think President George Bush is making the right move, and we need to support him in this decision.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, last week, our Nation mourned the loss of a great leader, Ronald Reagan. He led our Nation through a turbulent period of time. When he came to office, we were struggling with significant problems; with unemployment and inflation, and we were facing a significant threat from our Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan's policies, as we all know, helped lift us out of depression, tamed inflation, and ultimately led to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Berlin war, and freedom for millions of Eastern Europeans. By and large, the celebration of the life of Ronald Reagan, I thought, was outstanding, except for what I would describe as one sour note. Repeatedly, liberals in the press and advocates for embryonic stem cell research were bringing this issue up as it relates to Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's disease, indeed, holding out the absurd hope that embryonic stem cells could somehow be used one day to treat Alzheimer's disease. Indeed, many people were implying by their comments and words that the policies pursued by George Bush limited access to embryonic stem cells out of a desire to avoid destroying human embryos. And that is really the essence of the controversial issue here, because to do human embryonic stem cell research you have to destroy a human embryo, a human life, in order to gather the cells. One newspaper, The Washington Post, even editorialized that if George Bush were to allow the destruction of human embryos, this would be a fitting tribute to the life of President Reagan. In that same newspaper, the very next day, was an article reporting how embryonic stem cells are unlikely ever to be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Indeed, one of the lead researchers in the United States, Dr. Ronald McKay, stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss, ``People need a fairy tale.'' And he went on to explain how ``Alzheimer's disease is a whole-brain disease. It is not a cellular disease, and it is unlikely that embryonic stem cells would ever be useful for treating such a condition.'' Now, what are the facts? What is the truth in this whole controversy? Because it is indeed a very confusing subject and it is very easy for poorly-informed reporters to mislead the public. Well, the truth is embryonic stem cells have never been used to treat any human being for any disease ever. You will hear people repeatedly say that they hold great promise, supposedly. But as a matter of fact, they have never been used to treat anything. Even in animal models, where you use mouse or rat embryonic stem cells, they do not even have a good animal model to treat an animal disease with embryonic stem cells. However, adult stem cells, which are the stem cells that we get from our body, as opposed to destroying a human embryo to get the stem cells, our body is full of stem cells. They are in our bone marrow, in our fat, they are even in our nose. Adult stem cells have been used in humans to treat Parkinson's Disease, to partially restore vision to someone who is legally blind, relieve systemic lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, cure severe combined immunodeficiency disease, treat several types of cancers, such as leukemias, solid tumors, neuroblastomas, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and renal cell carcinoma. Adult stem cells have been used to treat multiple sclerosis, treat children with the bubble boy syndrome, and treat heart failure in humans. Indeed, the FDA just recently approved a protocol to use adult stem cells in treating heart failure in humans. So what is all the hub-bub? Why are all these people running around saying they want the Federal Government to fund all this embryonic stem cell research when it has really never been shown that it will have a clinical application, meanwhile the adult stem cells are showing all this great promise? Why is all this going on? Well, the truth is that embryonic stem cell research is perfectly legal in the United States. There are no laws preventing it from being done. Every lab in America could do embryonic stem cell research. The issue here is who is going to pay for it, and the facts are that industry does not want to pay for it. They want the Federal Government to pay for it. The Federal government should not. It is unnecessary research and it is unethical.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I was a young intern in 1984. I had been through medical school and college and had not really followed politics much, but I was rotating through the cardiologist service. And I remember asking one of our attendees who he was going to vote for in the 1984 election. Ronald Reagan was running against Walter Mondale. He said he was voting for Ronald Reagan because he had a wife and three kids at home and the tax cuts that Reagan had put through were putting about $200 a month more in his pocket. And it was just making it easier for him to take care of his family. I had not followed politics much, but I was very much impressed by Rick Monsor's comments and began to read more and more about the policies of Ronald Reagan. And over time I came to realize, like millions of other Americans, that his economic policies had been reducing taxes on Americans, actually had precipitated a great economic recovery. It had resulted in a doubling of revenue into the Federal Treasury, a dramatic reduction in unemployment. It was essentially the right economic policy. And it is an economic policy that we still follow to this day. Of course, Ronald Reagan is most well known for ending the Cold War, precipitating the break up of the Soviet Union, and allowing millions of people in Eastern Europe to taste freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly for the first time in their lives. Millions of people besides those of us here in America were positively affected by the policies of Ronald Reagan. But what is most dear to my heart about Ronald Reagan was his indefatigable optimism, belief in the power of American ingenuity, the American spirit, the can-do attitude. At the time that he took office, we were facing, as many of us know, terrible problems with inflation and a declining economy and as well our defenses were in decline. It was not only his policies that moved us in a positive direction but his attitudes and beliefs that lifted our Nation and helped us to move on to better things. And he once said the following, ``Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way.'' President Reagan, your desire has become a reality. You did appeal to our best hopes and not our worst fears. And your confidence in us is leading us in the right direction today. We salute your great accomplishments.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the life and service of Dustin Schrage, a Corporal with the United States Marine Corps, who lost his life in Iraq while on a daring, classified mission on May 3, 2004. A graduate of Satellite Beach High School in Florida, Schrage joined the Marines right after graduation in 2001. He served his country honorably and with distinction. At the time of his death, Corporal Schrage was a member of the 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division assigned to the 2nd Battalion. He was a rifleman and a squad leader much loved by his unit. Corporal Schrage died in the line of duty while participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom II. He was found on May 6 after attempting to cross a body of water while conducting combat operations on May 3 in AI Anbar Province, Iraq. He had served in Iraq for one year prior to his death. He gave his life defending and protecting the United States from terrorism and bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq who have only known tyranny. Known for his infectious good humor, Schrage was fondly remembered by many of the members from his unit in letters written to his mother and father, Nina and Preston Schrage. A devoted Marine and true patriot, it has been said of Corporal Schrage that he was one of a kind, possessing a quick wit and displaying a unique talent. His ultimate sacrifice for his country will long be remembered. President Lincoln once wrote that as a nation we should ``have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty.'' Dustin dared to do his duty and in so doing he gave the ultimate sacrifice for our continued freedom. We owe him a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the life and service of Edward Jason Korn, a Captain with the U.S. Army, who lost his life in Iraq on April 3, 2003, while involved in a combat action approximately 15 miles South of Baghdad. Captain Korn honorably served his country as an enlisted member for several years before attending college, obtaining his degree and his commission. Korn was a member of the 3rd Infantry Division assigned to the Headquarters Company, 4/64th Task Force, 2nd Brigade. His service included duty in Desert Storm. Known by his fellow soldiers as a ``can do'' officer, he had only been with his unit in Iraq for six days before his death. He had volunteered for an assignment to the elite task force and he quickly gained the admiration of his commanders and his men. He gave his life defending and protecting the United States from terrorism and bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq who have only known tyranny. Captain Korn is survived by his father, Richard Korn of Malabar, Florida, his mother, Sally Davenport of Trenton, Ohio, and his stepmother Annette Hale of Savannah, Georgia. President Lincoln once wrote that as a nation we should ``have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty.'' Jason dared to do his duty and in so doing he gave the ultimate sacrifice for our continued freedom. We owe him a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the life and service of Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Boyd Jenkins, who lost his life near Al-Andar province while on active duty with the U.S. Navy in Iraq on May 2, 2004. Jenkins honorably served his country for 15 years and was a member of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force assigned to the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 of the Seabees. While he was a member of the reserves he also served as a member of the Martin County Field Operations Team. It was Jenkins intention to enter full time active duty service sometime in the future. He gave his life defending and protecting the United States from terrorism and bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq who have only known tyranny. Petty Officer Jenkins is survived by his father, David Jenkins, Rockledge, FL, his wife, Elizabeth Jenkins, and his stepmother, Linda Jenkins. President Lincoln once wrote that as a nation we should ``. . . have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty.'' Robert dared to do his duty and in so doing he gave the ultimate sacrifice for our continued freedom. We owe him a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the life and service of Michael R. Creighton Weldon, a Private with the United States Army, who lost his life as a result of a suicide bombing attack near the city of Najaf in Iraq on March 27, 2004. Weldon had just completed his first year of uniformed service to his country. He was a member of 3rd Infantry Division assigned to Company A and had been in country since January, 2004. He was one of four soldiers killed in the terrorist attack. He gave his life defending and protecting the United States from terrorism and bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq who have only known tyranny. Private Weldon choose to follow in the footsteps of another American hero, his mother, Jean Weldon who is a retired Army Sergeant Major. This 20-year-old soldier was striving to be the best soldier he could be. In his sacrifice of service to his country, he succeeded in bringing honor to his family, his unit and his nation. President Lincoln once wrote that as a nation we should `` . . . have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty.'' Michael dared to do his duty and in so doing he gave the ultimate sacrifice for our continued freedom. We owe him a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be here and join the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert). Space is important to the future of our country. We are a Nation of pioneers. We are a Nation of explorers. We lead the world in science and technology. Everywhere I go as I travel around the United States, I see images at schools, at universities, and in airports of our space program. Frequently I will see pictures or images of the Shuttle or of our Apollo pioneers; and the reason for that I think is obvious. It is in our blood, it is in our nature. Indeed, the gentleman mentioned I am a physician and practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected, and I still see patients once a month at the VA clinic in my congressional district; and I always marvel at the daily application of space technology, spin-off technologies directly from our Shuttle program, from our Apollo program, even from some of our unmanned probes. I have a contractor in my congressional district who has taken the NASA coolant technology used to cool the systems in these planetary probes that we use and has placed it in car and home air conditioner units and believes he can improve the efficiency of these air conditioner units by as much as 15 percent. The potential savings in electricity demand from a product like that, if it is able to yield its full potential, could be in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars over a period of just a few years. As a matter of fact, if this product proved to be as useful as he believes it may be, it could potentially pay for the space program several times over. Of course, as I was referring to earlier, as a physician we use space technology in many of our imaging modalities, like MRI scanning and CAT scanning. We use space technology in a lot of our pacemaker capabilities, these implantable defibrillators. Indeed, even the prosthetic devices, such as artificial limbs, some of the materials science that goes into those devices are actually spin-off benefits of the space program. So I rise today to join my colleagues in speaking out in support of the national space initiative that I think President Bush so eloquently laid out in his speech at NASA headquarters several months ago. It is really critical that we move ahead with this agenda, because one of the problems that I found within NASA from virtually the moment of my arrival is there was not really a clear agenda of where NASA was going. NASA had a very clear agenda when John F. Kennedy originally articulated it, I believe he was at Rice University, if I am not mistaken, in his famous speech, ``We go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard,'' and NASA had a clear agenda of getting a man on the moon. But since that time it has been a little unclear. Now the President has laid out very clearly an agenda, and I want to underscore for all my colleagues in the House of Representatives and the other body, this is an affordable agenda. Some people have ridiculed this as costing $1 trillion and being impossible to do. But with the tragic loss of Columbia, I think it has been clear and obvious to everyone that, for our manned space flight program to continue, we need to come up with a replacement for the space shuttle in the years ahead. We cannot continue to rely on this system. It has been a great system, but it is down now, it could go down again in the future, and when it goes down, we are dependent on the Russians for the support and service of the Space Station. So the President has laid out I think an affordable initiative to come up with a replacement vehicle for the space shuttle, but this vehicle would not just go and from low earth orbit, like the space shuttle does, but it would have the flexibility to be able to go back to the moon, to go on to Mars, and it can support the Space Station in the years ahead. Importantly included in this vision as well is the priority of reorienting the Space Station research. There have been a lot of people who have questioned what the purpose of the Space Station is, and the President has clearly put forward in his national initiative the vision of saying that we are going to focus the Space Station research on answering a lot of these questions about biological sciences in terms of how people live and work in space. As a physician, I know a fair amount about this. If you look at people who go up to the Space Station and spend 3 or 6 months there, when they come back, they frequently have problems standing up in the gravitational field of the Earth, they have problems with anemia, there are problems with bone loss, there are problems with blood loss, actually, something called the hemoglobin hematocrit decline in the setting of a prolonged space exposure. So we need a better understanding of that if we are ever to go to Mars and if we are ever to go beyond Mars and if we are going to create a permanent presence in space, such as on the moon. Now, the President's vision does call for going back to the moon and going on to Mars, but he lays out an initiative I think in a way that calls for international cooperation, so that this would be something that is affordable. The most important thing that I want to say tonight in this dialogue with my colleagues here is that some Members of the House of Representatives have criticized the budget request from the President as it relates to NASA and feel that we should not go to Mars, and therefore we need to reduce this budget request. But I just want to underscore the bulk of the President's request is to get the shuttle flying again and to complete construction of the Space Station. To say we want to cut NASA now is to basically to say, well, we do not want to fly the shuttle again, and we do not want to complete the Space Station construction. I do not think in any way there is a majority of colleagues here in this body who are saying that we do not want to do those things. So we need to put the resources behind NASA, I think, so that they can move ahead with getting the shuttle flying again safely and getting the Space Station completed. We have international partners.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. If the gentleman would yield on that, there is another interesting aspect of that, and I think it is really an unmeasurable return on the investment. One of the things I have been most intrigued by when I talk to teachers, and I have had conversations with teachers from all over this country on this issue, as many people know, we have a problem with not enough young people going into math and sciences. If you go to many of our colleges and universities, the bulk of the graduate students are foreigners. If you talk to our teachers in our schools, they will tell you the thing that gets people most motivated to study math and science, young kids, what excites young kids in the third grade and the fourth grade and the sixth grade to really hunker down and study math and science, more than any other subject, it is the space program. When you take the science teaching, math teaching, and apply it to the space program, the teachers tell me it gets them excited. How do you put a price tag on that? How do you measure that? You are talking about our competitiveness. Where are we creating jobs? We are creating jobs in the technology arenas. But if we are losing ground on technology because our young people are not studying those fields, then that can affect our whole economy. And how do you put a dollar value on that? I think the gentleman is absolutely right, and he said it best, we cannot afford not to invest in NASA. It is one of the wisest investments that we can make in this body, because it is an investment in our future. I would be very happy to yield to the majority leader. I am so pleased for the support the gentleman has supplied NASA over the years. It is great to have the gentleman with us.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding the time. I rise in opposition to this amendment. I was on active duty in the Army medical corps when this policy was put in place by the Reagan administration, and it was very well received by the medical personnel in the corps. The reason it was very well received is because most medical professionals do not want to have anything to do with abortion procedures. They recognize them for what they are. They are very brutal acts. Even those who are pro-choice will say, I am pro-choice, but I would never do an abortion. When I was on active duty, this was very well received by the troops in the medical department, and I think it would be a mistake to overturn this policy. Vote against the amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I, along with many of my colleagues, had the opportunity to view the photographs of the prisoner abuses in Iraq this past week, and I have had many of my constituents calling me and questioning me about these issues. I certainly agree with all of those who express outrage to see this kind of abuse going on, perpetrated by Americans. However, I disagree strongly with many of those who look at these recent developments and assert we should never have gone into Iraq in the first place, considering these great problems that are developing over there. I continue to feel very strongly the President did the right thing in using force against Iraq, and that Iraq was a serious threat from a terrorist perspective. And I think Tony Blair expressed this most clearly and most succinctly when he addressed the House of Representatives and the Senate in joint session right in this very Chamber. The reason we went into Iraq was because if you ever had the joining of weapons of mass destruction with the terrorist elements of al Qaeda, instead of 3,000 dead, as we had on September 11, we could have 30,000 or 300,000 killed. We went into Iraq for the right reasons. And to those who would say that the war in Iraq is unwinnable, I would assert that we have won the war in Iraq. The challenge that we face today is winning the peace. And clearly winning that peace is critically important. By taking the war against terror into the Middle East, there are many of our detractors, supporters of totalitarian regimes in that part of the world who would like to see us fail in establishing democracy in Iraq and would like to see some sort of totalitarian regime reemerge in that country. I will say this. If we cut and run as some people are proposing, there will be tens of thousands of Iraqis who will die unnecessarily. I was in Iraq in November of last year, and many Iraqis are cooperating with us. They want to see a democratic institution established that can govern their country, and many of those people will be imprisoned, tortured, and executed if we see a regime resume in Iraq similar to Saddam Hussein's regime. Now, many are questioning as to how this could have happened and are raising questions about Americans' character. How could it be that Americans are guilty of these kinds of terrible things? And, indeed, many of our detractors in the Middle East are trying to assert that we are no different from Saddam and his henchmen in that they torture people, and here we were, torturing people. I think if we look at the brutal execution that we saw recently where an American was executed in front of video cameras, we can clearly see there is a difference between us and them. The American people are rightly outraged, and they demand these abuses stop and that investigations be conducted. Well, in reality, the U.S. military responded appropriately months ago when they recognized this problem. Investigations have been underway for a while, and the abuses stopped long ago. Indeed, all we are seeing right now is a media and public reaction because the photographs were made available. The American people are good people, the American people are a moral people, and we are reacting appropriately. The perpetrators of these deeds will be brought to justice. Indeed, as I understand it, court marshals are underway almost now as we speak. The real question is why could a small few be driven to such terrible deeds? And that is a legitimate question for us to ask. Clearly, one important thing is a breakdown of command and control of authority, and we need to seriously investigate what happened here with the brigade commanders and the company commanders. How did we have breakdowns in our military intelligence operations where standard Geneva Conventions were ignored? But those investigations were underway, and we will find out. And that is how America is different. That will play out in the eyes of the public. To compare the United States to Saddam Hussein and his brutal regime, where this was business as usual, indeed it was official policy of the regime, is just totally inaccurate and totally distorted. What struck me most about viewing these photos was the simple fact that many of these photos were pornographic. How could it come to pass that American servicemen and women are perpetrating these kinds of acts and recording them all on camera? Certainly we need to ask those questions in this country today. But I do not think we can escape asking the question of whether or not this is an impact of all the availability of pornography in our Nation. Mr. Speaker, we have too much pornography in this country, and this body needs to act more and our court system needs to act more to try to stop it. We need to ask the questions of how could a small few carry out such morally reprehensible deeds.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. Yes, I do confess to being a doctor. I practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected to the House of Representatives. I still see patients. I see them once a month. I want to address the issue in this rule of medical malpractice reform. A lot of people when they debate the issues surrounding the need for medical malpractice reform and reining in all of these plaintiffs' attorneys who are advertising on television, a lot of focus is on the size of the judgments and the costs, the legal fees associated with this system. But the real burden on our health care system is the high cost of defensive medicine. What is defensive medicine? I can tell you exactly what defensive medicine is because I practiced it for 15 years. I spent daily between $300 and $3,000 a day unnecessarily. Primary care providers, they do not like to talk about this because it gets them in trouble with their insurance companies, not with their medical malpractice insurance companies but with the Blue Cross/Blue Shields and the Aetnas. The executives of those companies, if they hear doctors saying that they are spending money unnecessarily, they get very upset and they try to clamp down on it. But how does it work? You come in and you have a headache, you have just lost your job or you have got problems at home. You order a CAT scan, anyway, just because you are worried that you might miss something. And you see the next patient and you are worried about this. Some of you may listen to me and say, oh, this is just rhetoric, this is just hot air. This has been studied scientifically. They studied it in California. They studied it before and after the medical malpractice reforms went through. They discovered that just in the Medicare plan alone that for one diagnosis of heart disease, we are probably spending in excess of $600 million a year unnecessarily just within Medicare, just within one disease, because of defensive medicine. They passed medical malpractice reform in California. They looked at a reduction in costs with no increased incidence of complications, what we call morbidity and mortality. In other words, quality stayed the same and costs went down. The only way to explain that, the researchers said, is a reduction in defensive medicine. What does this mean? This means if you want to save Medicare money so we can afford prescription drugs, pass medical malpractice reform. If you want to reduce the number of uninsured, pass medical malpractice reform. If you want to reduce the cost of health insurance for American businesses so they can be more competitive in the international marketplace, pass medical malpractice reform.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the author of this resolution, my friend from Massachusetts, the ranking member and the chairman for bringing it forward. I went through 4 years of medical school residency, internship, and never saw a case of autism. I came from a large family on both sides, my mother and father, and never saw a case of autism. I was quite surprised when a physician friend of mine told me about 5 years ago, 6 years ago now, that his son had been diagnosed with autism. Then I discovered that Dan Marino had a son with autism; Doug Flutie, whose parents live in my district, had a son with autism. Then all I can say is the more I started looking into this, the more and more concerned I began to become. A disease that was virtually unheard of, estimated at one in 10,000. I met with people in California. They were coming up with estimates of one in 500, one in 600. I met with the CDC. I asked them what was going on. There was some controversy at the time 4 or 5 years ago because the diagnostic tools, the diagnostic and statistical manual had been changed such that maybe we were diagnosing more of it, but the incidence was not really up. Anyway, the CDC to its credit did the necessary research and concluded that the incidence of this disease had skyrocketed from being a rare, unheard of condition to one in 166, predominantly affecting boys. What has been particularly concerning to me is reports that I was receiving. Unlike the description that the gentleman from Pennsylvania was offering of a child in the nursery, the baby that you take home that has autism that just never seemed right, we were getting more and more of these reports where my baby was speaking and now is no longer speaking, my baby was reacting and looking at me and is no longer reacting and looking at me. This is a very, very serious crisis. I think the previous speakers have been very eloquent in pointing out the huge costs to our society. I am very glad they brought this forward because it brings public attention to this issue, and it brings the attention of this body to this issue. One of the main reasons why we need to try to address this and we need to move aggressively on this is that we have been battling Parkinson's disease and breast cancer and all of these terrible conditions for years and years, and we have a pretty good idea of what causes them. It is very hard to address the cause. We do not even know what causes this disease in these kids. We may discover that this condition is totally avoidable. We may discover that it is reversible. I am very pleased that the gentleman from Massachusetts put some language in there on early intervention services as children are diagnosed because what I am now hearing more and more is parents are saying, I got my kid in therapy or we did this or we did that and he is doing much, much better. And previously, the attitude was there is nothing one can do for them and it is basically almost like a terminal situation. Just institutionalization is all that can be done. And now, lo and behold, we are finding with early intervention these kids can become much more manageable. They can be taught. They can develop learning skills, reading, writing. So it is a much more positive outlook. Regarding the issue that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) was bringing up about mercury in the vaccines, the implication there, I think the science is not really in on this. It is really inconclusive, but minimally what I think we need to do is what the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) and myself are recommending, and that is get the mercury out of all the childhood vaccines. It is a toxic substance, and whether it is implicated or not in the autism, I think there is evidence to suggest it may be, that minimally we should not take any chances with little kids. We should not be exposing them unnecessarily to mercury. And therefore pass our legislation to get the mercury out. Again, I congratulate the gentleman from Massachusetts on this. We need more research. And let me just close by saying NIH and CDC have significantly increased their funding. They have been responding. I think NIH funding for autism research is up four-fold in the last 6 years, and the Secretary and the folks at NIH need to be commended for that, and I certainly commend them. But we need to do more because we may discover ultimately in the end this is a preventable condition and that we can allow thousands of children the opportunity to escape ever being affected by the disease in the first place, and we obviously need to do more in terms of treating the kids that have it. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, my vote on H.R. 4181 was not recorded. I would ask that the Record reflect that as a cosponsor of H.R. 4181 the record should reflect that I should have been recorded as voting ``aye'' on final passage.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I was with the Governor of Texas yesterday, and we called the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) at M.D. Anderson, and he asked that I rise tonight and thank Members on both sides of the aisle for your letters and prayers. He specifically asked me to thank all Members for the support that you have been providing him. He is doing well. He made a good recovery from his surgery. He is beginning his chemotherapy and radiation, and he asked that I extend his thanks to each and every Member.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise to speak about the NASA component in the budget. The NASA money is not specifically spelled out; but within the overall context of science and technology, there is level funding in this budget. I would just like my colleagues to get a good understanding of a couple of simple facts as it relates to NASA, particularly as we move through the appropriations process. Aerospace products lead on our positive balance of payments. The investment that we have made for decades in aerospace technology is resulting in a tremendous amount of jobs and a positive balance of payments. In 2004 dollars, here is where NASA's budget was in 1991, and this is what happened during the previous administration. We actually saw a 30 percent decline in NASA's budget. What this current administration is proposing, and some people have been ridiculing the President's initiative, is to just try to get some slight growth out of NASA, recognizing the tremendous importance of this as well not only for our balance of payments but our national security. And I just want my colleagues to know in this House that if we reduce NASA below the President's budget request, it is going to come out of the shuttle returning to flight and getting the Space Station program back on track. This is not money to go to Mars. There was never money in this project to go to Mars. This is to get the shuttle flying again, and this is to get the program through its construction phase to completion. I am a conservative. I feel very strongly that we should have a balanced budget. It was one of the things I fought when I came here, and I am going to work to try to get our country back on track for a balanced budget. But NASA already paid. When we were dramatically increasing education spending and many other Departments, the NASA budget was going down and down. I think this President correctly recognizes the tremendous value of the investment in aerospace research, and we need to continue the President's initiative on space.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I was unable to be present for today's votes. Had I been present I would have voted ``yea'' on the following resolutions: H. Res. 519--Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to the earthquake that occurred in San Luis Obispo County, CA, on December 22, 2003 (Representative Thomas); H. Res. 392--Congratulating the Detroit Shock for winning the 2003 Women's National Basketball Association championship (Representative Conyers); and H. Res. 475--Congratulating the San Jose Earthquakes for winning the 2003 Major League Soccer Cup (Representative Honda).

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 35, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Let me just commend my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), for the outstanding job I think he just did laying out many of the issues that have surrounded this debate. I agree with the gentleman, it is high time that we adopt the position that exists in 29 States; and I believe ultimately that most States will adopt this statute. I also want to commend the gentleman from Indiana for his advocacy regarding the fence in Israel. I think that is a very, very important issue. The gentleman's resolution that he is trying to bring forward I think is very timely and very important. The fence in Israel is preventing hundreds of these suicide bombers from getting into Israel and killing people; and I think it is a tragedy, as the gentleman from Indiana does, that that case is before that court in Europe, and the Israelis are doing the right thing. Getting back to the issue at hand here, I want to really commend my colleague, the gentleman from Missouri, for bringing this very important issue up. I am just going to speak as a doctor. We are going to hear from attorneys. We will hear, perhaps, from philosophers tonight on this issue. I practiced medicine before I came to this body. It was a joy; it was a pleasure practicing medicine. But there were some things that were unpleasant that I had to do. I will not mention them all; but one of them was, of course, the sad business of pronouncing people dead. We would frequently be called in to a hospital room by the staff, by the nurses and asked to assess the patient. The nurse was calling us to make a pronouncement of death. What do we do? Well, we check for a heartbeat; and, in cases where people are brain dead, we check for brain waves. Well, science tells us that babies have brain waves and beating hearts very early in development. You can detect a beating heart at 17 days and brain waves at 40 days. Now, of course, with new modern technology, we have this new technology called 4-dimensional ultrasound where we can get a 3-D image on tape of a baby in the womb actually moving, and you can actually see them moving their face, opening their eyes, sucking their thumbs, moving around. They have the appearance of a human being, because they are a human being. And obviously, many of us understand that. When we have one of the tragedies like we have seen and talked about tonight, Laci Peterson and this case in Kentucky is very, very heart- wrenching, and to say there is not a second victim to me defies logic. We desperately need this in Federal law. There have been cases that we have been unable to bring of double murders because we do not have a statute where punishments would have been meted out more significantly if we were able to bring the second murder case. So I think this is very timely legislation. It is very, very important. I certainly not only commend my colleague, the gentleman from Missouri, for bringing this debate forward tonight, but I want to additionally commend the author of the legislation, the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), a great member who sits on the Committee on the Judiciary, and who has really been an outspoken advocate on this issue and, in particular, she is very knowledgeable about the law. So I am very, very pleased to support the legislation. I thank my good friend. I also want to thank the gentleman for standing up for the principles of our Constitution and seeing to it that the Constitution is properly interpreted in today's context of today's law.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I know many of my constituents will be very pleased with this resolution coming before the House today regarding the Columbia disaster, but this issue has not been the one that my phones have been ringing about. I have heard from many of my constituents who are outraged over the offenses that they were exposed to in the NFL halftime show and many of the commercials. The NFL has promoted football, and the Super Bowl in particular, as a time for families to gather around the television once a year to see the NFL's best and, indeed, I was doing that myself. I had my 5-year- old son and my teenage daughter. Rather than being one of the NFL's finest hours, it was one of their most offensive. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue issued a statement following the game calling the halftime show offensive, inappropriate, and embarrassing to the NFL. Commissioner Tagliabue, when you hired one of the most offensive networks, MTV, to do the halftime show, what did you expect? MTV does not produce programming for family audiences. Indeed, my wife and I recognized that the halftime show was going to be offensive, and we changed the channel for 30 minutes. Commissioner Tagliabue, wake up.