Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2017--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, people ask for hope. They want hope and need hope. As a young doctor in my training, I worked at a children's hospital in the muscle disease clinic, and what I saw were families because muscular dystrophy, specifically Duchenne's, runs in families.

Families come into the clinic, and you knew the day you were seeing that young person it was going to be the best day that person ever had because this is a progressive disease and they are looking for hope and they look to you as a physician for hope and they look to the researchers for hope.

That is what this Right to Try legislation does. It provides hope. I believe it goes further than that. It is not just hope, it is also help because the research we have seen with this drug for muscular dystrophy, for Duchenne muscular dystrophy--and when you talk to the parents and talk with the patients, and I have met with the parents and met with the patients, what they are seeing is that day in the clinic is not their best day with declining after that, they have actually seen a reversal, which is miraculous. I am talking about working in a muscle disease clinic when I was in my twenties. We are talking a long time ago in my professional career working with people with muscle disease. This is the first thing I have actually seen that has actually reversed that declining trend that we see in young people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, where they go from being able to walk to then walking more slowly, to then graduating to a wheelchair. So all we are asking for is hope, when we know there is hope that is available and it may provide help.

The State of Wyoming passed the Right to Try law. The attorney general for the State of Wyoming is with us today. He knows about this.

He knows it is bipartisan. There was nothing partisan about this, I would say to my colleague from Wisconsin. There was overwhelming bipartisan support by the legislature. It was signed by our Governor.
Yet we see the minority leader come to the floor and object to a vote, which is something that would pass incredibly. He did it because his reasoning was something about a nominee of the President to be on the Supreme Court.

We are talking about people who are dying today, such as the woman whom this legislation is named after with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--Lou Gehrig's disease. People did the ice bucket challenge.
We saw Bill Gates have somebody pour a bucket of cold ice water over his head in an effort to try to help someone with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The minority leader came and named a couple of people who lost their lives. We all know people who lost their lives. The Senator from Alaska had a relative who lost his life to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Every time I go to mail a letter at the Post Office in Casper, WY, and drive down Randy Maxwell Boulevard, it is named after a postal worker who lost his life to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He would have loved the right to try.

So I come to the floor in support of my colleagues, in support of this legislation, and I am so sorry and sad to see the minority leader, the Senator from Nevada, stand and object to an opportunity to give the Senate the right to try, to give patients the right to try, at a time when we know there is actually potential cures available and there are people who are looking for the hope and looking for the help those potential cures provide.
I would say to my friend and colleague from Wisconsin, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for bringing to the floor the beautiful face of the patient from your home State who lost her life in the fight, who didn't have a chance to try.

Thank you for your leadership on the Duchenne muscular dystrophy front and for all people who are suffering around this country who need hope, who need help, and we know there is actually help available.
Thank you for your caring and your work on this, and I continue to stand with you and your efforts, as do many Members of the U.S. Senate and many, many Americans. I thank you for your continued leadership and your determination. I thank the Senator from Wisconsin for his incredible efforts, and I say this with profound disappointment in the minority leader to see that he would come to the floor and object to people having a right to try to save their lives.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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