Combating Autism Act of 2005

COMBATING AUTISM ACT OF 2005 -- (Senate - August 03, 2006)

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I understand the paper is in the process of being delivered to the desk on S. 843, so while that is happening, let me just make some remarks about the legislation.

The legislation that I am calling up on behalf of myself and Senator Dodd and the two leaders who have been outstanding in helping us bring this bill to the floor tonight is the Combating Autism Act. I know Senator Enzi was just speaking, but I want to thank Senator Enzi and Senator Kennedy also and the entire HELP Committee. If you want to talk about a team effort, this has been a tremendous team effort, starting initially with Senator Dodd and myself and our staffs who have just done an outstanding job.

I thank particularly on my staff Jen Vessey, who has just put in--I won't say hours of time but days of time, in working together along with Senator Dodd's staff and then subsequently the entire committee staff; in particular, Senators Enzi and Kennedy's staff, as well as, as we brought this to the process, Senator Frist and Senator Reid.

This team was committed to getting this bill done and passed before the August break. We had many bumps along the way, but tonight, with a minor change in the bill, we are going to see this piece of legislation pass and pass by unanimous consent.

I am very excited about all of the work that has been put in by the entire autism community. I think, as Senator Dodd will attest, there are very many arms of the autistic community, a lot of groups who have a very wide variety of people with respect to how to deal with Federal legislation regarding autism. But we were able to sit down and work together over months of time.

I thank some people in particular who have worked outside of the Congress, outside of the Halls of Congress: Bob and Suzanne Wright deserve special recognition as grandparents of an autistic child for their tremendous effort in pulling together these outside groups, along with Deirdre Imus, who, again, devoted an extraordinary amount of time and energy in bringing all of these disparate groups in the autism community across the country together to work toward a common goal, and that is to authorize an autism coordinator, authorize work and research to be done at NIH that looks into all of the issues regarding autism, including the causes of autism, how to best screen for autism, how to best diagnose autism, and how to best treat autism.

It is one of the few disorders that I am aware of that is so prevalent in America, and we have very few good answers on any one of those issues. It creates enormous amounts of frustration for parents and relatives and friends of children with autism that we just seem to have no answers, and we see an ever-increasing population of autistic children with fewer and fewer answers on how to diagnose, screen, test, and treat these young children.

So tonight is a real landmark. It is a step forward for a community that has been seeking someone to listen to them in Washington. It has been a real honor to work with Senator Dodd. He has just been terrific, including tonight, when we ran into a bump and he was able to smooth that bump. We had one on our side. After lots of discussion, and thanks to the leader and his work here, we were able to deal with that, and now we are in a situation where we can move forward and pass this important piece of legislation. I believe the paper work is now ready.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 578, S. 843.

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Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank Senator Enzi for just the tremendous commitment that he and Senator Kennedy made to being patient and working through the months of time it took to bring this bill together.

I know his intention was to move a comprehensive reform of the NIH, and he made an exception for this piece of legislation. Senator Dodd and I thank both Senator Enzi and Senator Kennedy for breaking ranks, making sure we could move this as a separate piece of legislation, apart from the overall reauthorization of NIH.

I want to say to the leader, as Senator Enzi said, we wouldn't be here if it were not for your commitment to get this bill done. I know Senator Reid, with whom I spoke just a few minutes ago, said: This is a very important bill to me; this is something I want to see done. We worked through the bumps here right at the end to get that done thanks to you, our two leaders.

Up until the very end this has been a difficult process, but we are here. Having worked on a lot of bills, I have been very blessed in the time that I have been here. I have had my share of legislative successes and bills I have worked on and worked hard on to make a difference. I can't think of any piece of legislation that I will feel better about as I reflect back on what I have accomplished here than what we have done tonight.

People who are dealing with children with autism are a special group of people. Senator Dodd laid that out very eloquently. They are a special group of people who are, in many cases, just more determined to be able to solve this enigma that is in their family, this disorder about which they just can't seem to get the answers they need.

I always say when I meet with a group of autistic kids and their parents, the commonality in every one of those meetings is tears. In most cases, we are talking to parents who are very, very stressed out and really sort of at their wits end as to how to grapple with this problem. Tonight, hopefully, we will begin the process of drying those tears and creating hope for a whole group of Americans and their families who deserve better answers than what we are getting from the medical community today.

One final note. I want to say that Senator Dodd, I think, referred to Deirdre Imus as the flame that just burned. I say, then her husband is the torch that is burning many places--many parts of our body at times, in getting this legislation through. Don Imus deserves, certainly, his credit for taking this issue on in a very public way and, because of what he does on the radio, increasing public awareness about this disorder and making a contribution to this effort that we are seeing successful tonight. But also the effort improving awareness of this order.

I am happy to yield to Senator Dodd.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suspect that Don Imus is so dedicated to raising awareness of this issues because of the work of his wife. That is why he does this, more than anything else. We are delighted to have both of their support and commitment to this important issue.

On my own staff, I wish to thank Jim Fenton, Tamar Magarik, and Elizabeth Hoffman; Jen Vesey with Senator Santorum; Shana Christrup and Steve Northrup of Chairman Enzi's staff, and Caya Lewis with Ranking Member Kennedy's staff.

We have had some wonderful people on all sides work on this, and I am pleased to recognize them and add their names to the RECORD.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I earlier thanked my staff member, Jen Vesey, and I want to reiterate that. I really cannot tell you how much credit she deserves for this legislation and the enormous amount of time she spent in pulling this altogether. As Senator Dodd mentioned staff again, I thought it was important for everyone who is working out there in the autism community to understand what a champion you have in Jen Vesey, who is on my staff.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Chambliss and Senator Thune be added as cosponsors to the legislation.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I understand there is an amendment at the desk. Let me explain what this amendment does before I ask consent it be adopted and the bill be passed, because I know people are going to hear that this bill passed and passed with an amendment and they are going to wonder what the amendment is and whether this does anything to change the bill.

The amendment is as a result of one of the bumps that we ran into tonight, trying to get this bill passed unanimously. It is not easy to get the Senate to do anything unanimously, particularly anything complex, and this is a very lengthy piece of legislation that has a lot of complexity to it.

We had one issue brought up by a Member with respect to the increase in the amount of authorization for research. That Member thought that number was excessive and was going to object to the consideration of the bill tonight unless we were able to do something about that authorization number. In order to get the legislation adopted--because, again, there would have been objection tonight and that objection would have carried into the fall, and with a very short timeframe the likelihood of that bill being able to pass this fall and be considered by the House and then passed and sent to the President would have been highly unlikely--so I was able to negotiate with this Senator to reduce the level of authorization, the increase, from $100 million in the area of research in the NIH to $200 million--which is what the bill calls for--from $100 million to $150 million. Instead of the research going up $20 million a year for 5 years up to $200 million in the final year, it will go up at $10 million a year to $150 million in the final year. Again, still a sizable increase.

It is a 50 percent increase in funding over 5 years in the authorization. If you look at what we are doing here in the Senate these days, we are not increasing funding for many programs at 50 percent. So it is not all we had hoped, not all we had wanted, but it is better than nothing. Unfortunately, with the late hour of this bill being brought up, nothing was a real alternative and not a pleasant one.

As a result, that is the amendment we will be considering here in a moment. After the amendment is adopted, then the bill will be passed.

We will send the bill over to the House and hope that when the House returns in September and is willing to bring up this legislation, pass it as it is, and send it on to the President so we can get moving on finding a cure for the autism spectrum disorder.

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Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, first let me express my sincere gratitude to Chairman ENZI and your staff for investing so much time and thoughtful effort in this important legislation, as well as thank Senators DODD and KENNEDY, and their staffs. Few things are more important than the health and happiness of our Nation's children, and the Combating Autism Act will go a long way to helping those diagnosed with autism live up to their full potential. We have a tremendous opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of children with autism and their families. This Federal investment will lead to better understanding of autism, increase awareness, diagnosis and intervention--all things that will make a profound impact on families struggling for answers and hope.

Autism raises complex and emotional issues. All of us who worked so hard on this legislation sought to keep the primary focus of the bill on autism research and awareness. However, in addressing the key issues within S. 843, some have raised concerns regarding a potential link between vaccines, vaccine components, such as thimerosal, and autism. Can the Chairman clarify his position on this issue?

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I am happy to do so. In 2004 the Institute of Medicine's Immunization Safety Review Committee concluded that the body of epidemiological evidence ``favors rejection of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorder'' and also ``favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism spectrum disorder.'' The IOM committee also found that ``potential biological mechanisms for vaccine-induced autism spectrum disorder that have been generated to date are theoretical only.''

However, the IOM committee also acknowledged that ``[a]bsent biomarkers, well-defined risk factors, or large effect sizes, the committee cannot rule out, based on the epidemiological evidence, the possibility that vaccines contribute to autism spectrum disorder in some small subset or very unusual circumstances.'' The IOM committee also noted that ``experiments showing effects of thimerosal on biochemical pathways in cell culture systems and showing abnormalities in the immune system or metal metabolism in people with autism spectrum disorder are provocative,'' and suggested that ``the autism spectrum disorder research community should consider the appropriate composition of the autism spectrum disorder research portfolio with some of these new findings in mind.''

I agree with the IOM committee's recommendation that ``available funding for autism spectrum disorder research be channeled to the most promising areas.'' The HELP Committee reported this bill without making the determination for the autism spectrum disorder research community of what are the ``most promising areas'' for investigation. Instead, the bill reported by the HELP Committee contemplates key research activities, including environmental research, that focus on a broad range of potential contributing factors, with meaningful public involvement and advice in setting the research agenda.

However, I want to be clear that, for the purposes of biomedical research, no research avenue should be eliminated, including biomedical research examining potential links between vaccines, vaccine components, and autism spectrum disorder. Thus, I hope that the National Institutes of Health will consider broad research avenues into this critical area, within the Autism Centers of Excellence as well as the Centers of Excellence for Environmental Health and Autism. No stone should remain unturned in trying to learn more about this baffling disorder, especially given how little we know.

I also want to note that this broad statement is appropriately limited to biomedical and not epidemiological research. Although S. 843 provides for specific centers of excellence to examine epidemiological issues related to autism spectrum disorder, there is currently no expectation that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should further pursue additional epidemiological research regarding the link between autism spectrum disorder and vaccines or vaccine components, unless new biomedical research provides additional information about specific at-risk subpopulations. At this point, given what we know and what has already been done in this area, no new epidemiological research is required.

Mr. SANTORUM. I agree with the comments of the chairman. I thank him for clarifying, and again for all of his hard work on this legislation.

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Mr. SANTORUM. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to, the committee-reported amendment, as amended, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon table and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the RECORD.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burr). Without objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment (No. 4878) was agreed to, as follows:

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Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair.

For the information of those who might be listening, the bill is now passed and we are off to the House with great hope that this fall will bring us successful passage there and final action by the President sometime in September.

I yield the floor.

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