Rebuild America Jobs Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORKER. Thank you, Mr. President. I am sure the Chair is familiar with us going back and forth, and I thank the Chair. I thank my friend from Connecticut. I know he mentioned the Senators who have joined us in this effort, as well as the House Members on the other side of the Capitol, in a bipartisan way.

First, I thank him for his leadership on this issue and for approaching our office about it. I know the public watches Washington and wonders if there is ever anything that is done in a bipartisan way. There are actually lots of efforts that are undertaken that way, and I am very glad to be working with him and his staff who have been very professional and, hopefully, this bill can become law.

The problem is that we have these drug-resistant bacteria called superbugs. All of us have read and heard about them. They are becoming harder and harder to treat because we lack the new antibiotics capable of combating these infections. It is actually scary when we think about what is happening in many facilities across our country. So it is obviously crucial to discover new antibiotics so we can stay ahead of this growing trend of drug resistance.

Drug discoveries, obviously, don't happen overnight. Action is needed now to ensure that we have access to these lifesaving medications when we need them.

These are serious infections. They are definitely life threatening to the patients, especially children and the elderly. In fact, the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, has named this antibiotic resistance as one of the top public health concerns in our country.

According to the Infectious Disease Society of America, 100,000 deaths and 360,000 hospitalizations result from antibiotic-resistant infections each year in the United States. In my State of Tennessee, nearly 2,000 cases of MRSA are reported annually. MRSA is a common and very dangerous type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria often found in hospital settings. Again, I am sure all of us know of cases where this has happened to loved ones, friends, and others.

The financial impact of these infections is also staggering, costing our health care system $35 billion to $45 billion annually.

This problem is also threatening the health of our troops abroad. One particular type of bacteria, known as a Ramibacterium, is striking hundreds of wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq. Since 2003, more than 700 U.S. soldiers have been infected or colonized with this life-threatening bacteria.

While bacterial infections continue to become more resistant to traditional antibiotics, innovation of new antibiotics capable of combating these infections has slowed by an alarming rate. FDA approval of these new antibiotics has decreased by 70 percent since the 1980s. Between 2003 and 2007, there were five new antibiotics approved by the FDA compared to 16 new antibiotics from 1983 to 1987.

This bill, the GAIN Act, provides meaningful market incentives and reduces regulatory burdens to encourage the development of new antibiotics that will help us save lives and reduce health care costs. Specifically--and I appreciate the way the Senator from Connecticut has approached this--the bill provides 5 additional years of exclusivity to new drugs developed to treat these superbugs.

The bill also gives these antibiotics priority status during the FDA review process so they can move through more quickly. It encourages the FDA to revisit the clinical trial guidelines for antibiotics. By encouraging a more robust antibiotic pipeline, we can help ensure patients have access to lifesaving treatments while also reducing health care spending.

The GAIN Act is a straightforward, commonsense bill that provides market incentives to encourage innovation without putting Federal dollars at stake. Antibiotic resistance is

a growing issue that we must address to properly prepare for the future.

Dr. William Evans, the director and CEO of St. Jude Children's Hospital in Tennessee, recently wrote a letter supporting this bill. Many of my colleagues know of St. Jude and the wonderful work they do for children across our country. Here is his quote:

We don't want to find ourselves in a situation in which we have been able to save a child's life after a cancer diagnosis, only to lose them to an untreatable multi-drug resistant infection.

I wish to thank my colleague again, Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut, for his leadership on this bill, and I look forward to working with him to ensure it gets proper consideration in the Senate.

Also, I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record from the following organizations: St. Jude Children's Hospital, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, and East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

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