Statements On Introduced Bills And Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Hatch, Senator Reed, Senator Burr, Senator Ensign and Senator Franken in introducing the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2010, a bill that will benefit some of the most gravely ill patients--those in need of a blood stem cell transplant. The bill we are introducing today reauthorizes the vital work being done for patients as a result of the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005.

I first joined Senator Hatch more than seven years ago on legislation to create a national network of cord blood banks and a cord blood registry. Five years ago, when the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee took up cord blood legislation, Senator Hatch and I, working with many of our colleagues on and off the committee, expanded the scope of our legislation to include a reauthorization of the national bone marrow program and updated the cord blood provisions to be consistent with the recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine's report, ``Cord Blood: Establishing a National Hematopoietic Stem Cell Bank Program.'' In the end, that legislation, the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005, passed the senate unanimously.

Since then we have learned a lot of about adult stem cell transplantation. There are currently twelve public cord blood banks across the U.S. and cord blood cells account for 22 percent of all transplants as of 2009. Among minorities, transplants using cord blood as the cell source are even higher. As of 2005, survival rates for transplants involving an unrelated donor are almost identical to those of a related donor which represents a near doubling of the survival rates for unrelated donor recipients over the past 15 years.

The bill we are introducing today builds on the success of the National Cord Blood Inventory and the national bone marrow transplantation program, making minor improvements to both. Among the most critical changes to the law is the prioritization of the creation of new cord blood collection sites so that we can increase the National Cord Blood Inventory. The 2005 law set a goal of collecting and maintaining 150,000 new units of high-quality cord blood. Unfortunately, the inventory is well below that goal and the transplantation needs of patients. In part, that is because the funding has not kept pace with what was authorized by the 2005 law. While I applaud President Obama for including additional funding for the National Cord Blood Inventory and the national bone marrow transplantation program in his fiscal year 2011 budget, I find it regrettable that President Bush did not provide full funding for these programs in any of his budgets, despite his vocal support for these programs and adult stem cells generally.

In my own state of Connecticut, there are more than 128,000 donors participating in the National Marrow Donor Program. There is some very exciting work going on at Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital involving marrow or cord blood transplantation. In fact, last May, I had the privilege of meeting Ms. Teena Conquest, a bone marrow donor from Middletown, Connecticut, and the recipient of her bone marrow, Rebecca Christy, from Iowa. It was truly inspiring to hear their story and how one woman's generosity saved another woman's life.

I am deeply disappointed that there are currently no cord blood collection sites in the state of Connecticut through the National Cord Blood Inventory program. Currently, more than 160 hospitals in the U.S. have an agreement with a public cord blood bank through the National Cord Blood Inventory program to perform collections for banks within the National Marrow Donor Program network. While none of those hospitals are in Connecticut, it is my strong hope that with this reauthorization, we will be prioritizing the establishment of new cord blood collection sites for the public program. I strongly encourage hospitals in Connecticut who meet the criteria to become a cord blood collection site and help increase the inventory of cord blood so that patients in need can find a match.

As was the case for Ms. Conquest and Ms. Christy, the therapeutic benefits of bone marrow are tremendous and well established. Bone marrow transplants have been used for nearly half a century to treat patients suffering from diseases such as leukemia, Hodgkin's Disease, sickle cell anemia, and others. The National Marrow Donor Program, NMDP, provides a single point of access, the National Registry, to nearly 8 million volunteer bone marrow donors and 160,000 cord blood units, including more than 28,000 federally funded units in the National Cord Blood Inventory. The NMDP has helped countless patients and families understand their disease and treatment options with educational resources and one-on-one case management support.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me and my colleagues in support of this important legislation. It is my strong hope that we can move quickly to mark up this legislation in September and shortly thereafter pass this bill in the Senate.

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