U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin, Jeanne Shaheen, Ed Markey, and Joe Donnelly Call for Investments to Fight Opioid Epidemic in 21st Century Cures Act
In the letter to Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Reid, the Senators stressed the need to provide immediate funding to address the opioid epidemic.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) are calling for investments to fight the opioid epidemic to be included in the 21st Century Cures Act, which is under consideration for passage during the Lame Duck session.
This epidemic knows no political party. Substance use, misuse, and use disorders are national problems that continue to cripple our communities. Our law enforcement, health care system, families, and states simply cannot tackle the problem alone and without necessary resources,” the Senators wrote to Senate leaders. “As the end of the year fast approaches, it is past time for Republicans and Democrats to come together to provide emergency funding and increase investments in prevention and treatment services for opioid use, misuse, and use disorders. Until we do, our job is not done and our communities will continue to hurt. We urge you to act immediately to ensure that Congress fulfills its commitment to the American people by providing adequate resources to help quell this epidemic in the 21st Century Cures Act. We stand ready and look forward to working with you to swiftly achieve this goal.
In the letter to Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Reid, the Senators stressed the need to provide immediate funding to address the opioid epidemic before the end of the year. The Senators also highlighted recent efforts in the Senate to provide needed investments to increase access to prevention, treatment, and recovery services and the need to build on these proposals.
An online version of the letter is available here.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.
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“The problems with the 21st Century Cures Act’s FDA provisions have been covered in leading scientific publications, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Science and Nature. The most egregious of these encourage the use of anecdotal clinical experience as evidence that drugs are safe and effective; allow antibiotics on the market based on pre-clinical evidence, that is, laboratory or animal studies, with little testing in humans; and weaken the already limited evidence needed to approve medical devices, even allowing companies to farm out the certification of safety of modified devices to third parties, circumventing the FDA altogether.”
“Gregg Gonsalves is the Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale Law School-Yale School of Public Health. Daniel Carpenter is a Professor of Government at Harvard University, and the author of Reputation and Power, a history of FDA drug regulation. Joseph Ross is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Yale.””