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Lupus...Ignored by Congress

© Adelle Vancil Tilton

On February 12, 1999, Representative Carrie P. Meek of Florida introduced an amendment to the Public Health Service Act which allocated seventy-five million dollars for Lupus research. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives and sent to the U.S. Senate, where it also was passed and the President signed it into law. Now, 16 months after Representative Meek introduced her bill, Lupus victims are enjoying the benefits of this added research funding.

If you believe that one, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that I'll sell you, CHEAP! As nice as it would have been, the fate of H.R. 762 is not quite so perfect. Instead of nearly unanimous support in the House, only 238 of the 435 members support the bill. That's only 53%, enough for passage if the bill made it to the floor for debate, but it never got that far. Instead, following the usual Congressional reasoning, the bill has been tied up in committee since its introduction. Now, under normal circumstances, bills are debated in committee, and if passed are sent on to either another committee or sent to the floor for a vote. But that isn't what happened to the Lupus Bill. Instead it is buried in the subcommittee on Health and Environment, where it has been languishing without action since March 1, 1999. And when I say languishing, I may be understating the lack of attention this bill is receiving, since the last major action on the bill was its referral to the committee. Nothing I could find in reports on Congressional actions indicates that it has had any action since the date the committee received it. In other words, it died a quiet death, and the House of Representatives is making funeral arrangements, probably on the day after the next Congressional election.

You might say, "Well, there are two Houses of Congress, so the Senate will do something." Wrong again! The Bill was introduced by Senator Robert F. Bennett on May 27, 1999 and referred to committee. At this point the bill vanishes from the record. According to current information that referral was the last major action in the Senate.

According to the Lupus Foundation of America 1.4 million Americans, 90% of whom are women, suffer from this condition. They are American citizens, voters, and taxpayers, as well as sisters, wives, and mothers. And they are being ignored. Lupus, a tragic illness which leaves its victims unable to function normally and may result in death, is a wide-spread, devastating and discriminating autoimmune disease. For unknown reasons, it causes the immune system to become hyperactive and attack the body's own tissue and organs.

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