Reid Announces Millions In Funding For National Health Tracking Program

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Subject:   Reid Announces Millions In Funding For National Health Tracking Program
 Date:      Fri, 4 Jan 2002 09:26:15 -0500
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
          Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation 

cc:    Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov

Dear Mr. Helliker,  I thought you might like to read an article entitled:  Reid Announces Millions In Funding For National Health Tracking Program dated Thursday, December 20, 2001.

Washington, D.C. - Nevada Senator Harry Reid announced today that the Labor, Health and Human Services (Labor HHS) Appropriations Bill contains $17.5 million for a national health tracking network.

"When cancer strikes a community, we have an obligation to focus every available resource on finding and eliminating that danger," Senator Reid said. "This funding is a huge first step to identifying and tracking chronic diseases, and how to stop something like a cancer cluster from devastating families and communities."

Senator Reid held a Congressional hearing earlier this year in Fallon to look at possible causes and solutions to the childhood leukemia outbreak in the community. A health tracking program was recommended at the Fallon hearing as a useful way in reducing diseases.

The $17.5 million Senator Reid secured will be used to develop health tracking pilot programs in various states throughout the nation. Reid will use the pilot programs to develop legislation establishing a Nationwide Health Tracking Network to identify and track other clusters and their environmental factors.

Reid is working closely with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who attended the hearing in Fallon, and Senator Ted Kennedy who is the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee which will have jurisdiction over the legislation. "Concerns about chronic diseases like cancer, birth defects, asthma, and autism extend to every community in our country -- from childhood leukemia in Fallon, Nevada, to breast cancer on Long Island, to respiratory impacts around Ground Zero -- yet we currently have no way to effectively and comprehensively track the outbreak of most chronic diseases nationwide," Senator Clinton said.

"A nationwide health tracking network deserves high priority.  Scientific research is establishing that dangers to the environment can be dangerous to public health as well. This appropriation will improve our understanding of this correlation, and help us identify and respond to these threats and prevent them in the future," Senator Kennedy said.

Well Mr. Helliker,  I am sure that proper research will prove contamination not age causes cancer clusters. "Registered" carcinogens and other POISONS should never be used, especially when there are safe and far more effective (unregistered) alternatives.

Respectfully,  Stephen L. Tvedten

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