Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this week Education Secretary Spellings released guidelines to clarify the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but the current law does not go far enough to keep our campuses safe. Schools need to be able to talk with parents when they think a student is at risk for violence without fear that they are going to be sued. That is why I introduced H.R. 2220, the Mental Health Security for Families and Education, or the Mental Health SAFE Act, to allow universities to notify parents if a student is at risk of suicide or homicide or assault, while holding schools harmless if they act in good faith. Schools should be focused on the safety of students, not fear of being sued if they do take action or sued if they don't take action. We need a law to protect students and parents.

It is too late for Virginia Tech; it is too late for the many students who commit suicide or homicidal acts each year. It is not too late for other campuses. I ask my colleagues to please cosponsor the Mental Health SAFE Act. Let's work together to save lives.

This Tuesday, a Wall Street Journal article written by Theo Francis started off by saying, ``Hospitals are prime breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant `superbugs' that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. But most people have had no way of knowing how well their hospital keeps these bacteria--and infections in general--under control.''

Nineteen States have some version of requiring reporting of infection rates in hospitals, but there is no overall plan for this, and thus there is a great

deal of confusion. That is why I introduced H.R. 1174, the Healthy Hospitals Act, to help our Nation's citizens understand the infection rates in hospitals and get these under control.

Here are today's sad statistics. So far this year 1.6 million people have developed an infection in a hospital. There have been 73,000 deaths and a cost of over $40 billion. It is time we get these under control, and I ask my colleagues to help support by signing on as cosponsors of H.R. 1174. Let's stop these deadly diseases that are killing so many in our hospitals.

Madam Speaker, yesterday's headlines stated that more people will die from MRSA infections than die from AIDS, but that's just the beginning of the story, for actually some 90,000 people will likely die this year from an infection they pick up in a hospital or receiving health care. Tragic news. We also hear about students in school who have died from MRSA infections. But the point is hospitals are taking actions to reduce its infection rates, and yet Congress is not doing anything to help address this issue.

We can do something about it by passing legislation I've introduced, H.R. 1174, the Healthy Hospitals Act. My legislation would require hospitals to report infection rates. After all, people can find out if their airline is on time; why not be able to find out if your hospital is infection free. Nineteen States currently require reporting, and several other States are considering legislation. Medicare earlier this summer began denying hospitals reimbursement for hospital-related infections.

It is long overdue that Congress act. Let's standardize hospital reporting practices and fight hospital-related infections. I ask my colleagues to please cosponsor the Healthy Hospitals Act.

Mr. Speaker, in the news headlines yesterday and today, we learned that more people die from an infection called MRSA than die from AIDS. The news, however, is much worse than this. And that is, if you look at the amount of preventable infections that occur in health care settings, it actually is more like 90,000 people die, will die this year from preventable infections in health care settings, and over 2 million cases will occur.

The cost to our health care system in America is over $50 billion. As we look at the cost of health care and how families cannot afford it, it is important that this Chamber take into account what we can do to reduce costs and fix the system and not just finance the system. And this is one of those areas.

Now, recently, the Center for Medicare Services, CMS, also said that they would move towards not funding treatment of preventable infections in hospitals. Now, although that is an important move, and one that will save a great deal of money and one that we believe will help motivate health care centers to take more action, it still does not help with a couple of issues. One is that there's not a universal system across America where citizens can find out what are the infection rates within certain health care settings. And those are important because when one is selecting a hospital for care or going to a clinic, it would be good to know what those infection rates are.

You know, for example, it's mandated by law that airlines have to report their on-time rates for when they depart or arrive at the gates at an airport. However, you cannot find that information about the safety levels of the hospital which you may be going for treatment or surgery, and we need to make that available.

Nineteen different States require some level of this, but, quite frankly, it is a hodgepodge of different requirements. Some report to the Department of Health. Some report some diseases and not others. And we need to make this uniform across the Nation so that patients can tell and that it is an important aspect of helping people to understand before they go into a hospital.

Now, the thing about this is these infection rates are preventable. You have issues such as MRSA, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus; pneumonias; urinary tract infections; and others that could be preventable by a couple of important procedures: washing hands; wearing gloves for procedures; sterilizing equipment; cleaning up before and after procedures, including patients' rooms and other areas;

making sure that visitors to the hospital follow these same procedures; wearing a hospital gown or other clothes so that patients do not get exposed from one doctor visiting one room to the next. Some countries even require visitors to wear masks and a gown and to scrub. I understand in the United Kingdom they require the doctor to make sure they scrub and not wear jewelry room to room and to put on a different gown as they go to each room so that diseases are not spread. These are important steps that can take place. However, we don't have any kind of universal reporting system in this country.

My bill I introduced called H.R. 1174, the Healthy Hospitals Act, would help to make this uniform. And that is it would require the Secretary of Health to come up with a system of reporting and hospitals would give their information and there would be an annual report to Congress of best practices to reduce these deadly diseases.

It is tragic that more people die from infection they pick up at a health care center each year than all of our soldiers who died in Vietnam. And if we saw this as the emergency that it is, if, for example, we had heard that a plane crashed somewhere and a couple hundred people died, we would know that all sorts of Federal agencies would be all over that investigating that. If the next day another plane crashed and a couple hundred more died, an uproar would be across America as to what is happening to airplane safety. If it happened a third day in a row, probably we would shut down the airports. But here, when someone dies every 5 minutes, new infections occur all the time, we do not take this kind of action. And we need to see this as an emergency, particularly because there has been a number of hospitals which have tackled this problem and have solved this problem and have virtually eliminated some of their infection rates. We need to do this as a nation.

In addition, my bill, H.R. 1174, would also provide, from the savings that come from reducing these infections, a grant program to hospitals that have been able to massively reduce or eliminate their infection rates.

We need to gather together as a Congress and no longer ignore this problem, which is leading to so many deaths. We need to acknowledge those hospitals and health care settings that are leading to major changes and cleaning this up and also help those hospitals that are not. We can no longer hide from this problem when we see in the news the number of deaths that are occurring there, and even now so many have this, the things that are occurring in schools as well.

We have to take vigorous action as a nation to save these lives. And I would hope that my colleagues would sign on as supporters of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, last April, 33 students were killed at Virginia Tech. That tragedy exposed problems with Federal laws that are a barrier to schools communicating with parents when a student has a serious problem. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 states that students' records cannot be released except ``to protect the health and safety of the student and others.''

Unfortunately, the interpretation of that law is so unclear that schools are fearful of being sued.

The just-released report from the National Association of Attorneys General Task Force on Campus Safety calls for an update of the FERPA law that would allow for protection from liability if schools make good-faith efforts to protect students, faculty and staff.

That is precisely what my bill, H.R. 2220, offers, a way to allow schools to communicate with parents when a student has significant mental health problems that increase the risk for suicide, homicide or violent acts while we still protect the confidentiality of records.

I ask that all my colleagues join me and Representative Grace Napolitano in cosponsoring our bill, the Mental Health Security for Families in Education Act, and work to protect our students.

Let's take down the walls between parents and schools. Let's take action now to save lives tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, within the past hour, the House voted to pass a bill on the Children's Health Insurance Program, a laudable program that all Members agree is important to help children with their health care needs.

Unfortunately, the debate was filled with much rhetoric, and it is important that we cut through all that rhetoric to understand that despite comments made, neither Republicans nor Democrats nor the White House nor anyone else dislikes children. We all want them to have the best health care they can get, and we will continue to work to make sure that happens. But as that bill was voted on on this floor with a threat of the White House to veto it, feeling it was not an appropriate bill, it appears that there may be enough votes to sustain that veto.

During the coming days or weeks as the Senate also looks at this bill and as it goes to the White House, Congress has a couple of choices. First of all, Congress may take this as an opportunity to gain political points, spending untold hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign ads attacking each other, perhaps saying that each side doesn't care about children, perhaps trying to sway votes so that the veto is not sustained, accusing people of horrendous things which are not true. Or Congress can do what the American people expect us to do, and use this as an opportunity to make things even better.

Now, I believe there were a lot of good things in that bill, and I think all Members agree that there are important aspects about children's health insurance we need to support. But shouldn't we also use this as an opportunity to make things better?

There are elements in this bill that looked at some things to help with prevention, obesity, case management, health information technology, things that I have been talking about in this Chamber for the last 4 years as important things to help us save money. But let me review a few of these and say what we need to do and what we should be doing as Members of Congress to use this bill that will help several million children with their health care as a vehicle to find real change with health care. Instead of us continuing to come to this Chamber and debate how we are going to finance health care, we should be talking about how to fix health care.

The problem with health care is not just that the costs are too high and people can't afford them. The concern is that there is so much waste in our health care dollars that people cannot afford it, perhaps as much as $400 billion a year wasted on our health care system. If we are able to reduce that waste in health care, we can make health care more affordable, and we wouldn't have to be dealing with how do we find the money to fund children's health insurance or adult health insurance. By fixing the system, we could change that.

For example, health care-acquired infections this year will account for something like $50 billion in waste. This chart next to me indicates that just as of this evening, as of this evening there has been at least this many cases who have picked up infections in America, almost 1.5 million cases here, while some indications are that it may be much more than that. There have been some 66,000 deaths so far this year, one every 5 minutes, and so far spending, some $36 billion in health care-acquired infections which are preventable through hand washing, sterilized equipment, using clean procedures.

Health information technology, if we stop talking about it and work with hospitals to invoke it, can save $162 billion in reducing errors. If we do more with case management, we could reduce the big bulk of dollars spent on people who have chronic illnesses such as heart disease and other problems.

If we worked to reduce maternal smoking, we can reduce premature births, problems with low birth weights, asthma, respiratory distress symptoms, and so many other problems that infants experience, if we work to reduce maternal smoking.

Now, we have a choice here. We can continue to argue as a House over who has the better plan, the Republicans' or Democrats' plan; or we can really get together over these next several days and say we need to fix our broken health care system, not continue to finance it. We need a health care system that is focused on patients and not politics. We need a health care system that is focused on patient safety and patient quality and where patients can choose their doctors and hospitals.

I hope this is not a time that Americans will continue to see politicians beat their chest and say ``my plan is better''; ``no, my plan is better.'' I know if every few minutes a child or an adult is dying from an infection they picked up in a hospital, if we know the chronic illnesses they face continue to be so difficult to manage, and it is odd to me that Medicare and Medicaid will spend thousands of dollars to amputate the foot of someone who has severe diabetes, but won't spend $5 to have some nurse call that person and check up on them with care management, something is wrong and something is broken with that system.

If we really and truly care about children, as I believe we do, if we really and truly care about the health care of Americans, as I believe we all do, shouldn't we be focusing our time instead on how to fix the system and use the compassion in our hearts to roll up our sleeves and work together and stop this continued fighting for the sake of political points.

I believe that is what America wants, I believe that is what America needs, and I believe that is what they sent us here to take care of.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the career of Dr. Pascal Spino of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a remarkable physician.

After serving 60 years as a pediatrician, Dr. Spino is retiring after this long career. In 1954, he founded the first well baby clinic in Westmoreland County, which provides free exams and immunizations to children up to 6 years old. In 1972, Dr. Spino started the Render Any Needy Child Help program to provide medical care for abused children. He then went on to create a Level II nursery and modern pediatric department at Westmoreland Regional Hospital.

Dr. Spino has received a number of recognitions, including Dr. Spino Day in Westmoreland County, for his lifetime commitment to helping others. More than 4,000 people were in attendance, despite a downpour of rain.

I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Dr. Spino's career, personal sacrifice, and devotion to improving our health care system and helping children.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the medical career of Dr. Pascal Daniel Spino of Greensburg,

Mr. Speaker, what I am about to say may not be politically correct and it may not make folks in the White House or some of my colleagues in Congress happy, but every time I go home to my district, people ask me, when are we going to get serious about dealing with China?

For a long time, China has acted more like an enemy than a friend. Over and over again, they have sold our families harmful and contaminated products, they have spied on us, and now we find out they are shipping weapons to our enemies in the Middle East to kill our soldiers. This is not the behavior of an ally, but the behavior of an enemy.

They hurt our children. We have found toys containing lead paint and bibs and vinyl lunch boxes containing lead. Just this Wednesday, toy manufacturer Mattel announced it is recalling 700,000 Chinese-made toys because they contain excessive amounts of lead paint. This is the third recall of Chinese-made toys by the company in the past month.

On August 1, Mattel's Fisher-Price announced it was recalling 1.5 million

preschool toys, including nearly 1 million in the U.S. And then on August 14, the company announced a worldwide recall of 19 million toys. We all know the dangers caused by lead paint, which is why it is not used in American-made toys or homes. As a child psychologist, I can tell you firsthand exposure to lead paint can lead to attention deficit disorders, brain damage and medical ailments in children and in later life.

China has continuously sent us products that are harmful to our families, and even our pets. Their harmful products sold to Americans include contaminated pet foods, used chop sticks, tires that have caused fatal accidents, diapers containing a fungus, lipstick containing carcinogens, juices with unsafe color additives, baby bottles with ingredients that can alter a child's hormones, pacifiers containing chemicals linked to cancer, and teething rings with toxic chemicals.

In addition, China has systematically manipulated its currency to create an unfair trade advantage over the United States and other global competitors. They have repeatedly allowed their workers to counterfeit American products and steal our patents, costing us billions of dollars of trade each year, thus destroying American manufacturing jobs.

They have built power plants with cheaper outdated technology, causing excessive pollution and environmental hazards throughout the world, including the United States, and they have stolen national secrets from our U.S. energy labs.

Congress and the White House have allowed China to continue its blatant disregard for our country; and as a result, China has become more and more emboldened. They have now begun to directly and indirectly attack our military, actions that have taken the lives of American soldiers.

Beijing appears to be the culprit of a cyberattack launched against the Pentagon this past June. While this attack was not with missiles or guns, it is nonetheless an attack on our sovereignty that should not be unchecked.

Now we learn that China is supplying our enemies with weapons and ammunition being used to kill our soldiers. These weapons have included large-caliber sniper rifles; rocket-propelled grenades; improvised explosive devices, or IEDs; and shoulder-fired rockets. Millions of rounds of ammunition have also been linked to China. And many of these weapons are finding their way into the hands of the Taliban and insurgents in Iran. As U.S., Iraqi, and coalition forces try to prevent weapons from coming into Iraq, China has been directly aiding and abetting our enemies.

For far too long, China has been harming our children, our families, and our economy. Now they are killing our soldiers.

Well, enough is enough. China must be held accountable. If Congress can't act, the American people can, and Americans are saying no to China. From our food, to our clothes, to household goods, Americans are saying they will stop buying Chinese products.

Unless China stops its practices that hurt Americans, kill our soldiers and kill our jobs, I believe the American people will continue to stop buying Chinese-made goods. But Congress must also demand that if China does not stop these practices that hurt our soldiers and hurt our citizens, Congress, too, must act, and do so quickly.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 806, I inadvertently voted ``no'' while I intended to vote ``aye.''

Stated against:

Madam Speaker, on Thursday, July 19, 2007 my vote

on the Amendment by Mr. Camp of Michigan to H.R. 3043, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008 (rollcall vote 675) was recorded as a `no' vote when I intended to cast a `yes' vote. I wish to clarify on the record my support for seniors in Pennsylvania and across the Nation to access Medicare Advantage plans.

Mr. Speaker, here are some grim statistics.

As of today, 1,095,890 cases, 49,320 deaths, and a cost of $27,397,260,282. This is not a war. These are infections that people pick up in hospitals, and these are based upon CDC estimates of 90,000 deaths per year. But a more recent study came from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control, say the numbers can be as high as 119,000 deaths and 12 million cases per year.

When will we start acting to make sure that we have all hospitals act, as so many have done, to eliminate infections from hospitals?

I ask my colleagues to cosponsor and to help pass H.R. 1174, the Healthy Hospitals Act. It is time we stop wasting health care dollars, health insurance dollars and wasting lives and start saving lives in hospitals the way so many hospitals have been able to do. Please, let's get moving to make our hospitals healthier.

Madam Chairman, on rollcall No. 675 I inadvertently voted ``no'' but intended to vote ``aye.''

Stated against:

Mr. Speaker, at least half of all cases of hospital-acquired infections are associated with medical devices. These medical devices include items ranging from tongue depressors to catheters and heart valves.

These preventable infections infect 2 million patients per year and end up costing 90,000 lives and over $50 billion annually. These are unacceptable costs for patients, taxpayers and Congress.

Up to this moment this morning, we already have over 1 million cases, you can see on this chart, 47,000 deaths and a cost of over $26 billion, and that's just as of today.

Yesterday we passed the Medical Device User Fee Act which included an amendment in there that I placed in that allows for the government, the GAO, to study these issues. They note that even after rigorous cleaning and sterilization, virus and bacteria still exist on reused medical devices.

Manufacturers, providers and facilities should take measures to reduce the rate of infections. I urge my colleagues to refocus our Nation's health care system on patient choice, patient safety and patient quality and join me in working on these things together where we can save lives and save money for our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I am here to speak on behalf of this bill and my support for it.

Under the Medical Device User Fee Modernization Act reprocessed or reused medical devices are brought under the regulation of the FDA.

Now, there is a problem with reusing medical devices sometimes, and that is these devices were designed for optimal performance and safety under their intended conditions of use, not necessarily designed for their ease of cleaning or even secondary use, which make it extremely difficult to effectively clean and resterilize. Reusing medical devices can compromise their safety and performance and even destroy some of these devices. This can also lead to deadly hospital-acquired or nosocomial infections.

At least half, half, of all cases of nosocomial infections are associated with medical devices. Let me give some examples of the rates of infection from these devices: 23 percent of peritoneal dialysis catheters; 7 percent of pacemakers; 7.2 percent of implantable cardioverter defibrillators; up to 50 percent of ventricular assist devices; and 30 percent of bladder catheters, just to name a few.

I would like to thank Chairman Dingell and Ranking Member Barton as well as Chairman Pallone and Ranking Member Deal for working with me to include language in the Medical Device User Fee amendments of H.R. 2900, the Food and Drug Administration Act of 2007, for a study on the causes of these infections, from reprocessed single-use devices; from handling of sterilized medical devices; from in-hospital sterilization of medical devices; from health care professionals' practices for patient examination and treatment; hospital-based policies and procedures for patient examination and treatment; hospital-based policies and procedures for infection control and prevention; and hospital-based practices for handling medical waste and other relevant hospital practices.

Let me explain why and what this means in terms of real lives and dollars. A CDC report from a couple of years ago said that learning to prevent these infections has the potential to save over 90,000 lives and $50 billion annually, according to the CDC. A more recent report just came out and said perhaps we are up to even 119,000 lives a year.

Health care providers should work with medical device companies to provide patients with information if a medical device has been reused. Patients have the right to know whether or not a medical device designed for single use has already been used in another patient before a device is used on them and what can be done and what was done in terms of sterilization and cleaning that equipment. Otherwise, patients will be exposed to an unnecessary risk for hospital-acquired infections and medical device failures.

This study has the potential to save thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Eliminating infections from medical devices will move us towards a safer patient-centered health care system that promotes patient choice, patient safety and patient quality.

We all know that physicians and nurses and hospital personnel are all dedicated to providing the best health care possible. We also know when hospitals have worked together to eliminate infections, indeed, that is what they do. The VA Hospital in Pittsburgh and a number of hospitals in the Pittsburgh area that I am familiar with and worked with have indeed brought some post-surgical infection rates down to zero. And there have been occasional lapses in these throughout the nation where post-surgical infections or infections associated with medical devices have been unnecessarily high.

We can prevent these infections. We can save lives. We could save not only the Federal Government, but other insurance companies, billions of dollars, and I look forward to passing this bill.