CQ’s Carey Discusses Tobacco Regulation; Congressional Testimony by Medical Researchers; PEPFAR Reauthorization; House, Senate Budget Resolutions

Mary Agnes Carey, associate editor of CQ HealthBeat, examines legislation that would require FDA to regulate tobacco products, NIH funding, reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and the House and Senate fiscal year 2009 budget resolutions in this week's "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork.org and CQ."

According to Carey, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee voted 18-9 to approve legislation that would require FDA to regulate tobacco companies' marketing practices and the amount of nicotine in products, as well as evaluate product claims and dictate warning labels. However, the measure would not allow the agency to ban tobacco, Carey says. The committee also approved legislation that would renew the Traumatic Brain Injury Act.

Carey also discusses testimony by medical researchers at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. According to researchers, a lack of new funding for NIH is discouraging young researchers from entering the science field and putting the future of medical innovation and cures at risk. The researchers also released a study that found medical research funding has remained flat for the last five years even though Congress doubled NIH's budget from 1998 to 2003, Carey says.

In addition, Carey discusses the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's approval of legislation that would reauthorize PEPFAR for five years at $50 billion. Carey says the measure calls for balanced funding among abstinence, fidelity and condom programs and would require a report to Congress if abstinence and fidelity programs fall below 50% of AIDS prevention spending in a given country. A requirement in the existing law that at least one-third of HIV prevention funds go toward abstinence until marriage programs has been removed, Carey adds.

Finally, Carey discusses health care provisions in the House and Senate FY 2009 budget resolutions. The House resolution includes provisions that, if adopted in a House-Senate conference, would allow Medicare legislation to move through the Senate with a protection against a filibuster if the measure reduces the federal deficit. The Senate version would increase funding for NIH and FDA and expand eligibility for the Medicare prescription drug benefit low-income subsidy. The Senate version also includes a nonbinding amendment that Medicaid regulations proposed by the Bush administration should not undermine the program's health coverage guarantees or shift Medicaid cost burdens to states, Carey says.

The complete audio version of "Health on the Hill," transcript and resources for further research are available online at kaisernetwork.org.