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Legislative Archives: 2003, 2002, 2001
2005
The Microbicide Development Act of 2005
The Microbicide Development Act of 2005 was introduced in the House of Representatives on September 21, 2005 by Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL). Co-sponsors at the end of the 109th Congress included:
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Grijalva, Raul M. - AZ Berman, Howard L. - CA Capps, Lois - CA Davis, Susan A. - CA Filner, Bob - CA Honda, Michael M. - CA Lantos, Tom - CA Lee, Barbara - CA Matsui, Doris O. - CA Millender-McDonald, Juanita - CA Miller, George - CA Roybal-Allard, Lucille - CA Solis, Hilda L. - CA Stark, Fortney Pete - CA Waters, Maxine - CA Waxman, Henry A. - CA DeGette, Diana – CO Johnson, Nancy L. - CT Larson, John B. - CT Simmons, Rob - CT Wexler, Robert - FL Linder, John - GA Leach, James A. - IA Bean, Melissa L. - IL Davis, Danny K. - IL Emanuel, Rahm - IL |
Gutierrez, Luis V. - IL Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. - IL Kirk, Mark Steven - IL Rush, Bobby L. - IL Schakowsky, Janice D. - IL Moore, Dennis - KS Frank, Barney - MA McGovern, James P. - MA Meehan, Martin – MA Van Hollen, Chris - MD McCollum, Betty - MN Holt, Rush - NJ Payne, Donald M. - NJ Maloney, Carolyn B. - NY McCarthy, Carolyn - NY McNulty, Michael R. - NY Owens, Major R. - NY Brown, Sherrod - OH Kaptur, Marcy – OH Fattah, Chaka - PA Schwartz, Allyson Y. - PA Baird, Brian - WA McDermott, Jim - WA Smith, Adam - WA |
On March 8, 2005, International Women’s Day, Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ), Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced the Microbicide Development Act in the U.S. Senate. The Senate number assigned to the bill is S. 550. The bill's 20 co-sponsors included Senators:
| Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Hillary R. Clinton (D-NY) Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) |
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Edward Kennedy (D-MA) John F. Kerry (D-MA) Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD) |
Patty Murray (D-WA) Barack Obama (D-IL) Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) Charles Schumer (D-NY) Gordon Smith (R-OR) Olympia Snowe (R-ME) |
If your member of Congress is not listed above, Take Action Today to ask them to support the Microbicide Development Act.
2003
Legislative Update on Appropriations:
In previous years, we have been able to get increasingly supportive language in several relevant spending bills and reports and the trend is continuing. This year the Senate language explicitly calls on the NIH to "consider establishing a microbicides branch dedicated to research and development, with appropriate staff and funding." Click here for Senate budget report.
Inclusion of this directive in the Senate language appears to be the result, at least in part, of the Senate colloquy that Senator Corzine (D-NJ) engaged Senate Majority Leader Frist in last May. At that time, Senator Frist endorsed Senator Corzine’s recommendation for a dedicated microbicides branch at NIH. We’re still waiting for a response to the letter that Senator Corzine and other sent to NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni, relaying the recommendation. But the inclusion of this language in the Senate’s budget report suggests that the Senate stands firmly behind the recommendations contained in the colloquy.
The House of Representatives’ report language accompanying the FY 04 foreign aid spending bill is also very positive. It calls for further increase in the USAID to earmark microbicides research and makes a compelling (and familiar) argument for the need for greater investment. Click here for House budget report.
Over the next two months, several conference committees, charged with reconciling the House and Senate spending bills, will meet to come up with a final spending bills for the federal government. Clearly, some influential Senators and Representatives are becoming increasingly convinced of the important role that microbicides could play in slowing the pandemic. This is a direct result of our ongoing, collective advocacy both in their Washington DC offices and in their home districts. Senator Barry Goldwater once observed, “When I feel the heat, I see the light.”
US advocates can capitalize on this momentum by calling or e-mailing their two Senators and their local Representative to say, “thanks and keep it up! As always, you can click here to send that message quickly and easily. Please take a moment to send that message and help make sure our legislators to see the light on microbicides.
Senate budget report
Microbicides for the Prevention of HIV. HIV is a serious and growing women’s health issue. As of the end of 2002, half of the world’s HIV/AIDS-infected people were women. The typical woman who gets infected with HIV has only one partner-her husband. This trend devastates families and puts children at risk. Consensus has emerged across the public health, biomedical, and behavioral research communities that the range of preventive interventions for HIV transmission must be expanded, with particular focus on options women can control, such as microbicides. Microbicides are a class of products under development that would be applied topically to inactivate or block transmission of HIV and other infections. More than 60 potential microbicides are in various stages of development at public and private research entities around the globe. Designed for maximum safety and effectiveness, these products are also being designed to be inexpensive, readily available, and widely acceptable. With increased funding and coordination, the first such product could be available to the public in 5 to 7 years. Microbicides would be critical both until a range of HIV-preventive vaccines becomes available and as a necessary and complementary preventive technology thereafter. The National Institutes of Health, principally through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [NIAID], spends the majority of Federal dollars in this area. The Committee commends the NIH for increasing the funds available for microbicide research and development, and it supports additional increases in funding for this area through OAR, NIAID, NICHD, NIMH, NIDA, and ORWH. The Committee continues to be concerned that microbicide research at NIH is conducted with no single line of administrative accountability or specific funding coordination.
To address this, the Committee urges the Director of NIAID to consider establishing a microbicides branch dedicated to research and development, with appropriate staff and funding. The Committee continues to request that NIH´s Office of AIDS Research provide to the Committee, not later than 60 days after enactment of this legislation, a Federal plan for coordination and acceleration of microbicide research and development, as requested repeatedly by this Committee.
House budget report
HIV/AIDS Vaccines and Microbicides. The Committee notes that, at the end of 2002, half of the world’s HIV/AIDS-infected people were women. The typical woman who becomes infected with HIV has only one sexual partner – her husband, and very little say over the occurrence, frequency and terms of sexual contact. The Committee believes that this increases the urgency of finding woman-controlled methods of HIV prevention such as topical microbicides. More than 60 potential microbicides are currently being researched and tested around the world and, once developed, could serve as key prevention technologies complementary to vaccines, condoms, and other methods. USAID has played a particularly important role in the preclinical and clinical evaluation of potential new products, and the Committee urges that not less than $24,000,000 in bilateral HIV/AIDS funds be made available for microbicide research and development.
The Committee acknowledges the critical need to find other new technologies to prevent HIV infections and provides not less than $15,000,000 for research on and testing of AIDS vaccines. These funds will be allocated by the Office of the AIDS Coordinator at the State Department to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
2002
FY2003 Requested Appropriations Language
The following is the Statutory/Report Language currently being requested by the Global Campaign and its partner groups...
$15 Million Earmarked for Research
For the second year in a row, our legislative advocacy has secured a $15 million earmark for microbicide research at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as substantial increases in funding for microbicide R&D at NIH and the CDC. Canadian Global Campaign advocates have also succeeded in securing $300,000 new dollars (Canadian) from the Canadian government for microbicide research. All told, our advocacy effort can take credit for mobilizing at least $40 million in new funding over the last two years. This represents the single largest injection of funds into the microbicide field to date--more than the contributions the Rockefeller Foundation, amFAR or the UK Department of International Funding for Development (Dfid).
Summary of FY2002 Legislative Actions
FY 2002 House/CDC: Within global HIV/AIDS, the Committee expects CDC to expand support for microbicide research and development and support the priorities established in the HIV prevention strategic plan and the topical microbicides five-year research agenda...
CDC's role in Microbicide Development
According to recent statements by NIAID Director Tony Fauci, we are at least 10 years away from an HIV vaccine. Thus, in addition to strongly supporting ongoing vaccine research, working to discover additional HIV prevention technologies is crucial if we are to contain the HIV epidemic in the developing world...
Hot Flash #3 - Legislative Alert
Spring 2002 - What can you do to help get this bill passed?...
Summary of the Bill
Microbicide Research at the National Institutes of Health ...Expands and coordinates microbicide activities at the National Institutes of Health...Expedites the implementation of the five-year strategic plan for microbicide research..Microbicide Research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...Expands and coordinates microbicide activities at the CDC...Requires coordination with other federal agencies working in this field...
The Microbicides Development Act of 2001
During the 107th Congress (2001-2002), the Campaign worked with allies in the House and the Senate on the introduction of a bill that would mandate a fully-fledged program of research on microbicides at NIH and expanded work at CDC. The Microbicide Development Act (HR 2405) was introduced in the House by Reps. Connie Morella (R-MD) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in June and currently has more than 40 bipartisan cosponsors. Senators Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced the Senate version (S 1752) last November.
Campaign affiliates and partner groups worked mightily to recruit original co-sponsors for the bill and get additional members to sign on. It was during this effort that it became clear that our strategy for developing "the myth of the marching millions" was truly working. We were able to generate hundreds of phone calls, emails and letters to Congress through our local Campaign sites and their networks. The Director of Health Equity at the Rockefeller Foundation noted that during this perio a colleague of his on the Hill exclaimed, "Who are these microbicide people. They're everywhere!"
2001
Microbicides Development Act of 2001
107TH Congress. 1st Session H. R. 2405…To amend the Public Health Service Act with respect to facilitating the development of microbicides for preventing transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases...
Floor statement of Representative Morella (R-MD)
For over a decade, scientists have been working on a new category of products women could use to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, importantly including HIV. These products—"microbicides"—are compounds that kill or deactivate disease-causing microorganisms and can be formulated in different ways, such as creams, films, gels, or suppositories...
Floor statement of Senator Corzine (D-NJ)
Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation, the Microbicides Development Act of 2001. I am very pleased to be introducing this bipartisan bill along with my colleagues, Senators Snowe, Cantwell, Dodd, Leahy and Murray. I extend my gratitude to Senator Cantwell, in particular, for her support and assistance in the development of this legislation. Additionally, I applaud the efforts of my colleague in the House of Representatives, Republican Congresswoman Connie Morella of Maryland, for her leadership on this important issue. We all believe this initiative is vital to the pursuit of combating the global HIV/AIDS crisis....
Press Release
Congresswoman Connie Morella yesterday introduced The Microbicides Development Act of 2001, H.R. 2405...Congresswoman Morella said, "This week, the United Nations convened a special session of the U.N. General Assembly to address how to combat the spreading HIV / AIDS pandemic. Women now represent the fastest growing group of new HIV infections in the United States, and the position of women in developing societies will be a critical factor in shaping the course of the AIDS pandemic."...
