Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act of 2021

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 482, the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act of 2021.

Newborn screening is critical in the early detection and intervention of health conditions, some life-threatening, for our Nation's infants. They are for serious but rare conditions that families and doctors may otherwise be unable to detect at birth. Newborns are screened in the hospital when they are 1 or 2 days old by blood tests, in addition to hearing and heart screenings.

About 1 in 300 newborns has a condition that can be detected via newborn screening. However, if not detected and left untreated, these conditions can impact a child for the rest of their life by causing disabilities, developmental delays, illness, or even death.

Prior to the passage of the first Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act in 2008, which helped better standardize screening programs, States had varying standards for newborn screening, and they were not screening for many of the core conditions on the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel.

This bill authorizes funding for the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health to ensure that our newborn screening remains comprehensive and that our Nation's healthcare providers are adequately equipped to conduct the screenings.

Specifically, H.R. 482 reauthorizes grants through the Health Resources and Services Administration to expand State screening programs and improve follow-up care after a detection, in addition to allowing for the National Institutes of Health Hunter Kelly Newborn Screening program to continue to identify new treatments for conditions detected by newborn screening.

The importance of newborn screenings can't be overstated. Screening provides physicians and families with critical information regarding infant health, allowing for early intervention and treatment, if necessary.

I urge my fellow Members to support H.R. 482, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this bill and encourage others to do so. When I first was elected to the State Senate, the General Assembly of Kentucky, one of the biggest public policy efforts I got involved in was Governor Patton--our governor at the time--who was proposing a big 0-3 kind of overall for Kentucky's babies and children, and a big part of it was newborn screenings.

And that was a section I was kind of assigned to look into and I spent a lot of time doing research--even going down to see a lady who does this kind of research at Vanderbilt University and walked away convinced that it is the right public policy to do. It is money well- spent. It really changes people's ability. If you can't get your language at an early time, you can never get it back.

So this absolutely prevents--if you want to look at the cost of this system, this system going forward, but more importantly, it really enhances people to have the opportunity to live a full life if we catch it at the youngest level.

So I am convinced of this. I support this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to do so.

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