Supporting the goals and ideals of observing the Year of Polio Awareness.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 526) supporting the goals and ideals of observing the Year of Polio Awareness, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the resolution.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 526, a resolution authored by Mr. Rothman of New Jersey that supports the goals and ideals of observing the Year of Polio Awareness. I commend Representative Rothman for introducing this important resolution, which helps to raise awareness about polio and the continued need to vaccinate all children against polio and other infectious diseases.

While many of us in this Chamber are old enough to remember polio as a national tragedy that claimed thousands of lives and left thousands more permanently disabled, younger generations may have only read about polio in history books. But the story of polio, its spread, its dreaded consequences, the millions of lives it touched, and our ultimate triumph over the disease, should forever remain etched in our national memory.

Recently, the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History held an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the injectable, killed polio vaccine, also known as the Salk vaccine. The exhibit detailed the incredible story of polio in the United States, beginning with the 1916 outbreak in New York City that paralyzed 9,000 people and killed 2,400, most of whom were children less than 10 years of age. It went on to tell visitors about the all-consuming race to find a vaccine, from the story of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who may have been paralyzed by polio and went on to found the March of Dimes, the organization that raised hundreds of millions of dollars for polio research and treatment, and for which President Roosevelt's image was etched on the United States dime; to the research efforts led by Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, and others to come up with a vaccine that was safe and effective; to the mammoth public health effort needed to vaccinate all children in the United States once a workable vaccine had been found; and, finally, to the worldwide effort to eradicate polio in the latter 20th century. The fight against polio is an amazing story that deserves to be remembered and retold.

But like most museum exhibits, the most striking things about the exhibits were the images. On display were several iron lungs, the metal apparatuses that helped to keep children and adults with polio alive. These metal contraptions restricted all movement and were mostly small because they primarily housed children. They were necessary to help polio patients continue to breathe. Photographs depicted huge warehouses that had been converted to makeshift hospital wards, filled with rows of iron lungs and the children inside.

Other pictures showed parents standing on ladders and soap boxes, peering through hospital windows, trying to see their children who had been quarantined. Such pictures are painful reminders of a past that should never be relived.

The resolution before us today reminds all of us that we have all the tools needed to prevent the reemergence of polio in this century. By far the most crucial weapon in the fight against infectious disease is vaccination, the medical advance that has saved more lives than any other. Vaccines continue to serve as the first line of defense against infectious disease. The resolution rightly recognizes the need of every child to be vaccinated against polio. It also recognizes the 1.6 million Americans who survived polio, but still suffer from its effects today.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time with the intention of closing.

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

Madam Speaker, certainly as we talk about the elimination of polio, it is one of the great success stories, but one in which we must continue to be vigilant, as has been pointed out. As a Rotarian, I am proud that my organization, on an international basis, undertook as a project to eliminate polio worldwide, poured millions of dollars into that effort, and contributed greatly to the success of the elimination of polio in other parts of the world.

But as we talk about the polio vaccine, a disease that has been able to be treated with a vaccine, we are also on the verge of recognizing that we are going to have, as we currently have, a problem with vaccine manufacturers for not only this disease, but many other diseases as well.

Today we only have four United States vaccine manufacturers. That is down from about 50 that we had back in the 1960s. The bipartisan Institute of Medicine has identified three primary factors as the reason we have lost vaccine firms and for the reluctance of firms to get into the manufacturing of vaccines.

One is the economic realities, and certainly those are very real; secondly, the burdensome regulations that they must go through; and third, legal liability. As we deal with other diseases, in addition to this question of polio, we are going to be faced with the fact that we are going to have to encourage manufacturers of vaccines to get in the marketplace, and we must deal with those three factors as we move forward on this issue of vaccines for other illnesses as well.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and urge the adoption of the resolution.

Madam Speaker, first let me thank my colleague from New Jersey for giving me this time, and all of your efforts to increase polio awareness.

I would like to thank Chairman Deal for all of your hard work as the chairman of this subcommittee in bringing this matter to the floor, and for all of your support. I would also like to recognize the role of Ranking Member Sherrod Brown for his help.

Madam Speaker, I first want to thank the leadership of the Energy and Commerce Committee for bringing Resolution 526 to the floor. I also want to take this opportunity to recognize my constituent, a very tireless worker on behalf of those suffering the aftereffects of polio, Dr. Richard Bruno.

As the director of the Post-Polio Institute and International Center for

Post-Polio Education and Research at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, and chairperson of the International Post-Polio Task Force, Dr. Bruno is at the forefront of the movement to educate parents about the need to vaccinate their children against this debilitating virus.

This resolution, Madam Chairman, would not be on the floor today without Doctor Bruno's help. I am grateful for his work and commitment to this cause.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this resolution, 526, that will bring critical attention in the United States and around the world to the need for children to be vaccinated against polio. It sounds so simple. So many of us thought that polio had been eradicated, but that is far from the truth.

This resolution recognizes the need for every child to be vaccinated against polio and designates the year starting October 1st as the Year of Polio Awareness. It also urges all Federal agencies to educate doctors and parents about polio, and to also educate polio survivors and medical professionals about the cause and treatment of something called post-polio sequelae. More about that later.

It has been 51 years since the introduction of the polio vaccination. By now this virus should have been eradicated. But as has been said earlier by our chairman and Mr. Pallone, this is not the case. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 10 percent of the U.S. children under 3 years of age, which is approximately 1 million toddlers in our country, are not vaccinated against polio.

This percentage is even greater in America's poorest cities. Even more of our young people are not vaccinated against polio. In my own home State of New Jersey, only 86 percent of the toddlers living in Newark were vaccinated in 2004. Furthermore, the United States is not protected against a polio outbreak. In October of 2005, five children in an Amish community in Minnesota were diagnosed with polio. Although that outbreak was ultimately brought under control, this was a clear signal that we must do more in our country to prevent the spread of polio.

Polio outbreaks, Madam Speaker, are not only limited to occurring in the United States, but have, for example, as my colleagues have said, been reported in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Somali, Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger, Ethiopia and Yemen, amongst other countries.

In some way the polio vaccination has become a victim of its own success, one might say, with many Americans believing that polio has been eradicated. They no longer have their children vaccinated against this virus. That is a mistake. With outbreaks occurring all over the world, unvaccinated children everywhere, including in the United States, are susceptible to exposure and to catching polio. That is why this resolution is so important.

Madam Speaker, parents must be informed when making decisions about vaccinating their children. They have to know that there is still a threat that their child could be exposed to the polio virus. This resolution will help ensure that doctors will provide all of the necessary information to parents about the polio vaccine and the dangers of the virus.

I hope that the passage of this resolution will accomplish our goal of raising awareness of the importance of having every child vaccinated against polio, and will have the effect of allowing doctors to understand this post-polio sequelae syndrome, which is that after someone has lived a whole lifetime with polio, they then suffer a series of additional complications: chronic overwhelming fatigue, joint pain, and chronic pain of a variety of natures.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this resolution, which will educate our own people and all of the people of the world to the continuing threat of polio.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise to support House Resolution 526, which supports the observation of the Year of Polio Awareness.

I do want to thank the sponsor of the legislation, my colleague from New Jersey Representative Steve Rothman, for not only sponsoring this bill, but also for all of his efforts to increase awareness of polio. He will be speaking just a few minutes later.

Polio, as you know, is a viral illness that destroys nerve cells. As a result, muscles become paralyzed, and these muscles can atrophy and die. Polio is most common in infants and young children; however, complications occur most often in older persons and often post-polio.

Those complications have the often disabling symptoms of overwhelming fatigue, muscle weakness and pain, sleep disorders and more. It occurs in 75 percent of paralytic and 40 percent of nonparalytic polio survivors about 35 years after the polio virus attacks.

Although polio has plagued humans since ancient times, its extensive outbreak occurred in the first half of the 1900s before the vaccination created by Jonas Salk became widely available in 1955. And I would say, Madam Speaker, that I certainly am old enough to remember when there were many people who were struck by polio. And in the 1950s, when I was growing up, the fact that there was a vaccine available was just seen as an amazing thing. It was very much on the minds of all of us as we were growing up in the 1950s and the 1960s.

Sadly, despite having a vaccine against polio, this disease has not been eradicated from the world, and outbreaks continue to occur in the U.S. and other countries. As a matter of fact, it seems we are headed in the wrong direction. The World Health Organization announced last year that they would not meet their intended goal of eliminating new cases of polio worldwide by the end of 2005, since many cases remained.

The hope is that this resolution and the new resurgence of focus on polio will promote increased vaccination and education and treatment of post-polio complications. Even today, Madam Speaker, 10 percent of American children under the age 3 do not receive their polio vaccine. This percentage is lower in poor cities. Given new cases being reported in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger, Ethiopia and Yemen, an outbreak in the U.S. would not be surprising. And last year four cases of the polio virus were reported in Minnesota.

The eradication of new polio cases is achievable, but only if we reeducate the public about the dangers, effects and availability or a vaccine and treatment. This resolution asks all appropriate Federal agencies to take action to educate the people of the U.S. about the polio vaccine, and to educate polio survivors and medical professionals about the existence of post-polio complications and available treatments.

Therefore, I support this resolution recognizing a Year of Polio Awareness beginning on November 1

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to my colleague Steve Rothman, who, again, has taken a lead on this and so many other health care issues.

Madam Speaker, once again, we support this resolution and thank the sponsor, my colleague from New Jersey, for introducing it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H. Res. 526 supporting the goals and ideals of observing the Year of Polio Awareness.

During the 1940's and 1950's, between 30,000 and 50,000 cases of polio were recorded annually in the United States. This epidemic caused widespread fear and panic because of its devastating effects. Such effects include muscle and nerve damage, as well as the inability to move one's limbs or to breathe without assistance. The polio virus can also lead to a number of severe illnesses.

Fortunately, the injectable polio vaccine eliminated naturally- occurring polio cases in the United States, but unfortunately has not yet eliminated polio in other parts of the world.

The Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention recommends that every child in the United States receive all doses of the inactivated polio vaccine; yet as few as 57 percent of American children receive all doses of necessary vaccines during childhood, including the polio vaccine.

At least 70 percent of paralytic polio survivors, and 40 percent of nonparalytic polio survivors, are developing post-polio sequelae. Post Polio Sequelae are late effects of the disease that can occur 35 years after the poliovirus attack in 75 percent of paralytic and 40 percent of ``non-paralytic'' polio survivors. Because they present so long after an individual is ill, these effects are unexpected and are often unrecognized: fatigue, muscle weakness, muscle and joint pain, sleep disorders, heightened sensitivity to anesthesia, cold pain, and difficulty swallowing and breathing.

This year marks the 132nd anniversary of the diagnosis of the first case of post-polio sequelae and the 20th anniversary of the creation of the International Post-Polio Task Force. The mission of the International Post-Polio Task Force includes educating medical professionals and the 20,000,000 polio survivors in the world about post-polio sequelae through letter campaigns, public service announcements, and other forms of media.

I cannot understate the importance of the work of the International Post-Polio Task Force. Because many medical professionals and polio survivors do not generally know of the existence of post-polio sequelae or of the available treatments, it is vital that we continue to support efforts by organizations such as the International Polio Task Force to increase the awareness of the debilitating effects of polio.

I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.