We pulled our resources together and were able to successfully send in our written testimonies. Here is our testimony for the
Senate and the one for the
House. In addition, we spent time preparing informational packets to be distributed to various congressional offices. Susan Kreutzer, our “advocate on the Hill”, volunteered to fly to Washington, DC in case we were selected to appear in person for oral testimony. She was able to guarantee herself a reserved seat at the Senate hearing.
Unfortunately, we were not able to secure a speaking spot this time. We learned that competition is fierce for these speaking opportunities. It is usually the big groups who have a lot of clout that are chosen to testify. But, Susan was in attendance at both the Senate and House subcommittee hearings and reported back to us.
The
House Hearing took place on April 29th. Twenty three presenters spoke about a variety of topics, since this subcommittee covers labor, health and education. Most of those testifying were representing very large groups and were talking in the billions. This meeting was not televised.
The
Senate Hearing on April 30th was one of the most consequential hearings because Dr. Francis Collins, director of the NIH, presented NIH’s proposed programs and innovations to support the need for NIH’s budget for 2016. Representatives of the
27 institutes of NIH were present including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of NIAID. Dr. Fauci spoke about funding for research using
gene-editing technologies in human embryos. He explained the importance of NIH’s
Brain Initiative which could bring major advances for diseases like alzheimer’s, autism and epilepsy. The NIH proposes to create a study using a
national cohort of one million Americans to understand health and disease.
