House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) on Cure Strategy

Upton statement on committee priorities for the 114th Congress

ISSUED BY

Fred Upton

November 5, 2014

Earlier this year my Democratic colleague Diana DeGette joined me in launching the 21st Century Cures initiative with the goal of accelerating the pace of new cures and treatments. We have heard from patients, researchers, care givers, and innovators for the past several months about the tremendous opportunities we have in the United States to find treatments for the thousands of diseases without them and close the gap between the science of cures and how we regulate them. In the coming weeks we will continue to advance this initiative and work with our colleagues in Congress and the administration to deliver hope to patients and loved ones all across the country.  

Today is the Centennial of the birth of Dr. Jonas Salk--it's nice to see Google taking note

Fred Upton Leads a Cure Strategy for the 21st Century

My piece for Breitbart News. 

The Same Issues as the AIDS Crisis, three decades later

This article appears on the front page of the hard-copy of The Washington Post today. 

Three decades ago, it was AIDS.  Now, it's a myriad of illnesses.  And once again, individuals, and their families, are fighting off deadly diseases.  And once again, the bureaucracy is on the other side.  

And curiously, the Post seems to be on the side of the bureaucrats.  That is, the side of "regular order," the side of trusting the system to do the right thing.     Very curious.  

What we really need is a wide-open system of compassionate use, plus maximum experimentation.   That's how problems get solved the fastest.  

And while it would be nice if our leaders, including within the bureaucracy, had such vision, it's nice that somebody, at least, has it.    As the AIDS activists proved, vision from the bottom up can get the job done--or at least push the ball forward.  

"Infectious Causation of Disease: An Evolutionary Perspective"

Fascinating, important, and provocative piece by Cochran, Ewald, and Cochran, first published in 2000, in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine.

Lloyd Green, Writing in The Daily Beast, Takes Note of the Cure Strategy

This article, full of hope for transformative technology, quotes Jim Pinkerton herein:

Yes, all that will make for great theater in the run-up to November’s congressional elections, and fortunately for the Republicans, health insurance’s implosion is happening on Obama’s watch. But I’m talking about medicine, medical research, and cures. As Jim Pinkerton, a former White House domestic policy adviser to Presidents Reagan and Bush 41, likes to say, “A cure is better than care. It’s cheaper to beat than to treat.”

Fighting Killer Diseases vs. Fighting Gender Disorientation. Connecticut Makes Its Choice.

Reuters reports that people are dying of new viruses in Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong.  Which is to say, the next round of contagion, this time in the real world, could be just an airplane-ride away. Meanwhile, the state of Connecticut is pushing forward on a different cause--it is mandating that health insurers pay for gender-reassignment.  The Hartford Courant reports:  

The Connecticut Insurance Department is directing all health insurance companies operating in the state to provide coverage of mental health counseling, hormone therapy, surgery and other treatments related to a patient's gender transition.

Such mandates could have something to do with higher "healthcare" costs.  That is, if governments are continue to pile more mandates on the insurance system, of course costs will go up.     So much for "bending the curve."   People should be free to choose their own destiny, but it's not so obvious that the rest of us should pay for it.  

At the very minimum, we should be honest enough to admit that restraining the growth of healthcare costs if not going to be possible if the government continues to unconstrain healthcare costs.  

Meanwhile, people are dying.