Committee Statement: Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act

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Committee Statement: Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act

I thank the chairman for holding this mark-up today. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a killer disease that is not well understood. A registry will hopefully give researchers the information they are lacking and possibly lead to a cure. Children's vision needs have long been overlooked because children do not know when they need help. They fall behind their peers in school and life, and it takes years until parents and school officials figure out vision problems may be to blame.

The Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act will shed some light on a misunderstood part of pregnancy that I, as an Obstetrician, saw many times. This devastating depression affects women at what should be one of the happiest times of their lives, and too many women have suffered in silence because they did not know what was happening to them.

The Manager's Amendment makes the much needed addition of an authorized appropriations amount. We are an authorizing committee, and so it makes no sense to do the work of making a bill that has no authorized funding included. "Such sums" is an escape hatch for the directors, and I am glad to see that hatch closed by this amendment. On the other hand, that same amendment softens the language of the bill from "shall" to "is encouraged." Why do we go through the work of expanding the National Institute of Health's authority and scope on this short term authorization if we are not going to tell them what to do with it?

I look forward to moving these bills onto full committee.

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