Health bill expected to speed through House
It’s not a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. It’s…
…a $6.3 billion piece of legislation on Wednesday designed to spur medical innovation, speed access to new drugs, expand mental health treatment, and combat opioid abuse…
The bill, known as the 21st Century Cures Act, provides $4.8 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over 10 years to support brain, cancer and precision medicine research. It also provides $500 million to the Food and Drug Administration to approve drugs and devices more quickly.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to cut “red tape” at the FDA. He has not commented specifically on 21st Century Cures. The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week. It is expected to pass, though possibly not before some additional changes are made. It would then go to President Barack Obama for signature.
The bill calls for $1 billion over two years to treat and prevent opioid abuse, including improving prescription drug monitoring programs, training for health care providers, and expanding access to opioid treatment programs.
Critics of the bill, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democrat, said it contains too many give-aways to the pharmaceutical industry and will allow companies to push treatments with limited proof of efficacy.
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5 responses to Health bill expected to speed through House
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Obewon November 28th, 2016 at 20:04
Gee! Strikingly similar to the Obama / Biden Cancer Moonshot: Accompanying these findings and recommendations, today’s report includes the announcement of new commitments toward the goals of the Cancer Moonshot from both the public and private sectors. For example, today the National Cancer Institute, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft are announcing a collaboration to build a sustainable model for maintaining cancer genomic data in the cloud. The information stored there will be available to cancer researchers through the NCI’s Genomic Data Commons and Cancer Genomics Cloud programs.
The Department of Defense (DoD) is establishing a groundbreaking new study to transform our understanding of the biological basis of cancer. Using the vast amount of data housed within DoD’s cancer registry database and biological sample collection, researchers will have at their fingertips potentially 250,000 samples to uncover new connections between the earliest signs of cancer. Findings can then be linked to information housed within the Environmental Protection Agency’s databases to further accelerate our understanding of the environmental factors contributing to disease progression.
The new actions and public-private partnerships announced today are just some of the over 70 commitments made this year as a result of the Cancer Moonshot. These commitments range from hundreds of millions of additional dollars toward research to data sharing partnerships to make it easier for doctors, researchers and patients to access to the data that they need to make decisions about treatment, prevention and research toward cures. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/17/fact-sheet-vice-president-biden-delivers-cancer-moonshot-report https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/953799cb25d3527e5aa1afb148dff3d9d893500208178cf49f4a7f6b10ff7c2f.jpg
fahvel November 29th, 2016 at 03:08
Ms. Warren sounds like she sees the real picture.
liberalMD November 29th, 2016 at 03:20
There is a real problem in the United States with regards to access to the newer drugs to treat and prevent disease. But the problem is not at the approval level at the FDA. The FDA is approving drugs at a faster pace than ever. The problem is that few people can afford to pay for these drugs once they are released on the market. There is little doubt in my mind that this bill completely ignores this issue and the end result will be more drugs on the market that even fewer people will be able to afford.
bpollen November 29th, 2016 at 04:41
I have problems with how easily the FDA approves drugs. The company says “here’s data showing its efficacy” and the FDA twiddles their thumbs, then accepts the data at face value and rubber-stamps the drugs.
I don’t in any way disagree with your points, but just think that the FDA deserves the shade.
Duke Woolworth November 29th, 2016 at 06:39
If it’s good for the mice, it’s good for you. Right?