Commending the progress made by anti-tuberculosis programs.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1155) commending the progress made by anti- tuberculosis programs, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is my resolution, and I am proud to be the lead sponsor of it. And I rise today in honor of this resolution to fight tuberculosis, which I introduced with my good friends from Texas, Ted Poe and Gene Green.

House Resolution 1155 seeks to commend the progress made by U.S. anti-tuberculosis programs at the CDC, USAID, NIH and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and to reaffirm the House's historic commitment to global TB control made through the Lantos-Hyde Act enacted 2 years ago. My own legislation, the Stop Tuberculosis Now Act, was folded into the PEPFAR reauthorization, and I remain grateful to Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen, the gentlewoman from Florida, for their strong support of this significant investment in tuberculosis control. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Mr. Payne, is also to be commended for his commitment to tuberculosis control as well.

Mr. Speaker, TB is the second leading global infectious disease killer behind HIV-AIDS, claiming approximately 1.8 million lives each year.

TB is the leading killer of people with HIV-AIDS. TB control must be strengthened as part of a comprehensive approach to women's health. TB is the third leading killer of adult women globally, and women who develop the disease are more likely to die from it than men. The risk of premature birth or having a low birth weight baby double for women with TB, and those who receive a late diagnosis are four times as likely to die in childbirth.

Mr. Speaker, about half a million people fall ill each year with multidrug-resistant TB, but the World Health Organization estimates that less than 5 percent are receiving appropriate treatment, which is one of the factors fueling the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Although the number of TB cases in the United States is declining, the nature of this infectious disease presents a persistent public health threat to the United States. Tuberculosis is a significant public health program for the border States of California, Texas, New York, Florida and others.

Drug-resistant TB poses a particular challenge to domestic TB control owing to the high costs of treatment and intensive health care resources required. Treatment costs for multidrug-resistant TB range from $100,000 to $300,000 per person, which can cause a significant strain on State public health budgets. In 2008, 107 cases of MDR-TB were reported in the United States. Of particular concern is that four extensively drug-resistant TB cases were reported, double the number from 2007.

H. Res. 1155 calls attention to the critical need for public and private reinvestment into research to develop new TB diagnostics, drugs and vaccines to replace antiquated technologies that hinder our progress against tuberculosis.

Although drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines for TB exist, these technologies are increasingly inadequate for controlling the global epidemic. The most commonly used TB diagnostic in the world, sputum microscopy, is more than 100 years old and lacks sensitivity to detect TB in most HIV-AIDS patients and in children. The TB vaccine, BCG, provides some protection to children, but has little or no effect in preventing pulmonary TB in adults. We will never defeat TB without a public and private research investment into new tuberculosis tools.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of H. Res. 1155, to be on record in supporting the global fight against tuberculosis.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield back the balance of my time, I want to thank my good friend, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, who has partnered with me in so much good legislation through the years. And I really do appreciate her support.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 1155, commending the progress made by anti-tuberculosis programs.

Tuberculosis is the second leading global infectious disease killer behind HIV/AIDS, claiming approximately 1.8 million lives each year. It is estimated that \1/3\ of the world's population is infected with TB. This disease kills people of all races and ages around the world.

The global TB pandemic and spread of drug resistant TB presents a persistent public health threat to the U.S. The WHO reports that 5 percent of all new TB cases are drug resistant, with estimates of up to 28 percent drug resistant reported in some parts of Russia. Of these numbers, it is estimated that only 7 percent are receiving treatment.

Although drugs, diagnostics and vaccines for TB exist, these technologies are antiquated and are increasingly inadequate for controlling the global epidemic. The most commonly used TB diagnostic in the world, sputum microscopy, is more than 100 years old and lacks sensitivity to detect TB in most HIV/AIDS patients and in children.

Drug susceptibility tests for drug resistant TB take 2-4 weeks to complete, during which time a drug resistant TB patient in a developing country may die. The TB vaccine, BCG, provides some protection to children, but has little or no efficacy in preventing pulmonary TB in adults. We will never be able to defeat TB without the introduction of new identification, treatment and prevention tools.

World TB Day also provides us with an opportunity to celebrate the significant gains made in the fight against TB and reminds us of the challenges ahead. Since 1995, 36 million people around the world have successfully been treated for TB and 9 million lives have been saved.

Less than 2 years ago, this Congress passed two historic laws to combat TB. The Comprehensive TB Elimination Act authorizes the tools to put the U.S. on the path to TB elimination and the Lantos-Hyde Act, with multilateral commitment, aims to reduce the global TB burden by half within a decade.

Both of these laws would support an increased research investment to get us the new TB diagnostic, treatment and prevention tools that we urgently need. With enactment of these 2 laws, we have the power to combat TB effectively and reduce the human misery that this disease wreaks around the world.

I want to commend Rep. Engel for his tremendous efforts on TB awareness and urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 1155.

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

I am pleased to rise in support of the gentleman's resolution. Tuberculosis is truly a significant challenge for all of us. It is a disease that respects no borders, that claims the lives of over 1.8 million lives worldwide every year, and that continues to cause needless deaths every day. It is a major threat to peoples living in developing countries, but it is also a health risk here in the United States and in other developed countries.

As this resolution correctly points out, drug therapies that are currently used to treat tuberculosis are proving less and less effective as new and different strains of tuberculosis continue to build and develop resistance to these drugs.

There are about 9.4 million new cases of tuberculosis each year. In addition, according to recent news reports, it is estimated that 440,000 people worldwide have been infected with deadly multidrug- resistant tuberculosis in 2008 alone.

Just recently, the World Health Organization released a report that underlined the continuing threat from the spread of drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis.

Furthermore, as statistics reported by the World Health Organization note, parts of Africa face a truly staggering threat, due to the large numbers of those suffering from AIDS in those regions who are extremely vulnerable to tuberculosis. In such regions, tuberculosis can indeed be a fatal sentence of rapid and painful death.

The standard drug regimen for tuberculosis is severely outdated. With current treatment methods, patients treated for tuberculosis have to stay on medication for far too long, and that means that there can be lapses in medication that only feed resistance among strains of the disease. And so, new forms of treatment, new forms of therapies, and new vaccines are needed. But what is needed also at a fundamental level is the continued recognition of the dangerous nature of this disease and the commitment to continue the struggle against it.

I thank my colleagues, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), my good friend, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) for introducing this important resolution. Its adoption by this House should reinforce the message that we will continue to support the vital efforts to fight this disease.

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