Poison Control Center Enhancement and Awareness Act Amendments of 2003

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good chairman who has been instrumental in getting this important piece of legislation to the floor. Again, he has done yeoman's work with so many others here in this body.

Mr. Speaker, as the lead sponsor of the bipartisan House version of the Poison Control Center Enhancement and Awareness Act Amendments of 2003, it is my pleasure to help manage this bill, S. 686, the Senate version of the legislation on the floor today.

What we are doing today is taking up the Senate-passed bill and inserting updated language from our bill. We are doing so because we determined that it was the best way to expedite the final passage of this much-needed legislation reauthorizing and strengthening our Federal commitment to ensuring that our Nation's poison control centers can continue to provide life-saving services to all of our constituents, particularly in these last throes of this session of the Congress.

I want to take this opportunity to particularly acknowledge Senator DeWine's tremendous leadership on this legislation in the other body and to thank our original cosponsor and colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), who is on the floor; the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), committee chairman; and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking member; the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the House subcommittee chairman; the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the ranking member; and also for the many staff who have helped. I am grateful for their hard work, particularly Cheryl Jaeger and John Ford, and for the assistance that we have received from the American Association of Poison Control Centers and Jane Williams on my staff who helped shepherd this through so many juggernauts; and if we had a parking place for the staff member of the month in front of the Capitol, her name would be the first inscribed on that plate.

Mr. Speaker, poison control centers provide vital, very cost- effective services to the American public. Each year, more than 2 million poisonings are reported to poison control centers throughout this country. More than 90 percent of these poisonings occur in the home, and 50 percent of poisoning victims are children under the age of 6. For every dollar spent on poison control services, we save $7 in medical costs. We prevent a nightmare from happening in virtually any house that uses the phone number and uses these particular facilities.

The horrific events of 9/11 and the anthrax cases the next month brought home the vital role that our Nation's poison control centers must be prepared to play in the event of further terrorist attacks. The 2001 Presidential Task Force on Citizen Preparedness in the War on Terrorism recommended that poison control centers be used as a source of public information and public education regarding potential biological, chemical, and nuclear domestic terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, the passage and enactment of this bill will ensure that our Nation's poison control centers have the resources that they need to fulfill their vital mission as the first line of defense against accidental poisonings and the response to biological, chemical, and nuclear terrorism. I ask that all of the Members join us in voting for this legislation. It will indeed save lives for many Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I want to give my thanks to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the subcommittee chairman, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) for their help and leadership on this vital legislation; and I rise in strong support of S. 686, the Poison Control Enhancement and Awareness Act, and urge my colleagues to enthusiastically support final passage. As a cosponsor of the House version of H.R. 1819, I am pleased we are considering this critical legislation for approval today.

Mr. Speaker, the Poison Control Enhancement and Awareness Act provides essential support to our Nation's poison control centers. A critical component of the legislation would reauthorize a grant program to keep our poison control centers running and prepared for everyday emergencies.

This grant program is vital for the Carolinas Poison Center, which serves all of North Carolina. Carolinas Poison Center provides life- saving help to parents whose children have swallowed something dangerous, physicians who have unexplained illnesses, hospital emergency rooms which know what the toxic exposure was to a patient but need instructions on how to treat it, and many others in need of critical information about toxic exposure. Carolinas Poison Center's ability to continue these essential services depends on the continuation of the essential grant program as provided in Senate 686, which funds approximately one-fourth of its budget.

The tragic events of September 11 and the anthrax cases of October 2001 have dramatically changed our Nation. During this time, the Carolinas Poison Center, as well as poison centers throughout the country, answered thousands of additional calls from concerned residents. The Carolinas Poison Center was utilized by many citizens as the primary source for accurate medical information about anthrax and other potential bioterrorism diseases but also for the complications resulting from prophylactic antibiotic therapy.

Poison control centers throughout the country have become critical sources of local, State and regional bioterrorism response and information in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control. The Carolinas Poison Center recently completed an analysis of the 2000-2002 human exposure and information call volume, as well as reported human exposure clinical effects in order to determine daily volume and effects baselines, and threshold limits for detection of possible biochemical and disease outbreaks. These results were reported to State public health officials, and software capabilities that enabled Carolinas Poison Control Center were funded, in part, by Federal Prison Control Center grant funds.

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleagues on the Committee on Energy and Commerce for their work on this critical legislation, and our leadership for helping to move it forward today. I urge my colleagues to join me in securing passage for this essential legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 686) to provide assistance for poison prevention and to stabilize the funding of regional poison control centers, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 686.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 686, the Poison Control Center Enhancement and Awareness Act amendments.

This bill, Mr. Speaker, amends the Poison Control Enhancement and Awareness Act to provide additional assistance for poison prevention and to stabilize the funding of regional poison control centers.

I would like to extend my thanks first to my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), for all of his work on this important legislation and also add to that list the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), who has been very interested in this subject for a long time, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), Senator DeWine, and, of course, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and the others who have been so very cooperative.

Poisoning is the third most common form of unintentional death in the United States. Many of these exposures involve children. Poison control centers are a primary defense against injury and death from poisoning.

In the events since September 11, poison centers have taken on the additional role, Mr. Speaker, of providing medical information about biological, chemical, and nuclear domestic terrorism. S. 686 would authorize funds to maintain national toll-free poison control hotlines and the Poison Control Center Grant Program. Additionally, the legislation would create a nationwide media campaign to promote poison control center utilization and to allow the Secretary to assist in the implementation and maintenance of continuous national surveillance of poison control center data to detect new hazards from toxic substances, household products and pharmaceuticals.

I urge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to support this important legislation that the Senate has passed.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he might require to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the father of this act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Mr. Speaker, I would say that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) was here earlier, before even the votes. He wanted to really speak on this subject because he has a great interest in it, and I appreciate that interest.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to thank my colleagues, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), my friend, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), for their hard work on this bill, as well as my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), with whom we have worked so well.

Every day these specially trained staff of pharmacists and nurses at poison control centers across the country field calls from frantic parents concerned that their child ingested a poisonous substance. They field calls from an elderly couple with questions about whether one medication might cause an adverse reaction if taken with another; and as the events of September 11 and the cases of anthrax have shown us, poison control centers field calls from concerned residents uncertain about the danger they have been exposed to.

Handling an average of one poison exposure call every 15 seconds across the country, these men and women answer questions about poisonings, about drug abuse, about product contents, about adverse reactions.

Legislation we are considering today will enhance the work of poison control centers through improved maintenance of a national toll-free number that is linked to regional poison control centers. This bill will help promote the nationwide media campaign to promote

poison control center utilization. If a person has a problem, they need to know whom to call and they need to know the number, and they need to know that they are reliable. Every parent, every baby-sitter, every coworker, every household, and every office should know how to contact the poison control center closest to them.

This bill from the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) will help develop standardized prevention and poison control centers and will improve national surveillance of toxic exposures. It will improve the collection of data to help detect new hazards, including those found in our homes.

Mr. Speaker, every year roughly 120 children under 14 needlessly die from unintentional poisoning, 120 children under the age of 14. The bill we are considering today can save the lives of many of them. It is an important step towards reversing that trend and saving more children from poison exposure.

I urge my colleagues to support S. 686.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), who has worked so hard on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers. I think the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) has one. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by commending my good friend from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) for his excellent leadership on this and my friends on the Democratic side, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).

The very fact that we have this Poison Control Center Enhancement and Awareness Act Amendments on the floor is helping to depoison the atmosphere of this House. It is good to be on the floor this afternoon working with our friends on the other side of the aisle instead of throwing bricks back and forth. So the very fact that we are bringing this piece of legislation to the floor is helping depoison the atmosphere in the House.

This is a piece of legislation that builds on what was done back in 1999 when we authorized these poison control centers. Former Senator Dave Karnes, a former White House Fellow friend of mine from Nebraska, called me on this piece of legislation several weeks ago, asked if I would touch base with the House leadership and encourage them to move it, as it had already

passed the Senate and was awaiting floor time.

I went to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), and they were very willing to put this on a fast track; and, again, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) for making this part of the package of the bill that is on the floor this afternoon.

There are somewhere between 2 million and 4 million poison exposures each year to our Nation's children. Thankfully, in many cases of those cases, it does not end up in a catastrophic situation; but unfortunately, on occasion, it does.

The bill before us today, when the President signs it, is going to minimize the possibility or the probability that those exposures will result in a catastrophic situation. As a father of three children, when they were at home, we took advantage of many of the programs that are in this act in terms of labeling our household goods and chemicals and medicines so that our younger children saw the little smiley face turned upside down, the little green poison control, and of course, it had the message on it and the phone number to call locally or regionally if one had a problem.

So I rise in strong support of this. I am assured that we are going to have bipartisan endorsement; and, again, I want to thank the leadership for their strong work, and on our side the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and on the Democrat side, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for their excellent work.