Finally the committee on health, education, labor, and pensions will come to order. I think everyone for their patience. We have a lot of votes on the senate floor. Reconvene this hearing. Of the extraordinary publichealth efforts that have driven down tobacco use and the enormous challenges that remain. The nation has made remarkable progress in the 50 years as the first Surgeon Generals report on smoking and health. That time does not carry has been cut by more than half. We have learned what works from smoke free workplace is to access to free Cessation Services from meaningful tobacco taxes to robust regulations to Media Campaigns led a wildly successful tips from a former smoker to commonsense marketing restrictions. We know what works. Yes, despite all these efforts and successes tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death and the u. S. Let me repeat that. Tobacco use remains the number one preventable cause of death in the u. S. Right now 16 million americans are
The dawn of dannys life, the country was emerging from a great war, a war that left the rest of the world in ruins, but least america squarely in the center of the revolution for the first time in our history. Yet, on the horizon was the greatest economic depression this nation had faced or has faced since. His mother, his mother, the first of her generation in hawaii, his father an emigre from japan. At a time when there was strong and prejudices still in existence in america, a man who came of age as the secondary burst upon the scene, and that very prejudiced against japaneseamericans reached a crescendo. December 7, 1942, as the majority leader alluded to, on the way to mass, or on the way to church with her grandfather listening to your radio about the bombing that was taking place in pearl harbor. First as danny told the story, over several times, he thought it was the most he and his father drove, he could see, could see pearl harbor, the bombs bursting. He was then labeled and
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the white house. This is a great day. And we mark today, the decades of Public Health research, policy and Community Efforts that have dramatically reduced tobacco use in this country. The commitment of those of you in this room and your colleagues across the country, to ending the tobacco epidemic is truly inspiring. Im proud to be here to acknowledge your accomplishments. I want to be sure that you know how important this work is, to this administration, and to this president. Improving the Nations Health is a goal of every president. Its a priority for this one. He has spearheaded legislation and used the bully pulpit to help make our children, parents, friends, families, communities as healthy and able to meet their potential as possible. Thats why he led the effort to sign into law and implement the Affordable Care act. The law is not only helping to improve health by making conk more affordable, but leading to access to Smoking Cessation to mil
Agency, dea, to try to get scheduled narcotics on to electronic prescribing. And after years of bureaucratic battle, finally the regulations came out. I think that facilitates via electronic prescribing Prescription Drug monitoring, when you no longer have to go and ask for the paper scripts from individual doctors or from individual pharmacies, you can look at a database and you can see, wait a minute this, fellow is a podiatrist. Why are they prescribing oxycodo oxycodone . They prescribed 500 capsules last month and now theyre prescribing 5,000. Wait a minute. This person has gone to five doctors in five pharmacies for the same prescription. Whats going on . It opens investigatory doors. And yet, years later, its now electronic prescribing for all this stuff. The Prescription Drug monitoring programs dont seem to have yet really come online as a proper investigative tool to give us the common sense information that we need to make these determinations. What are the best next steps t
Afraid to save the life of a Family Member or a loved one because of legal liability. I recently introduced a bill called the opiate overdose reduction act. Its a simple solution to a problem. It extends protections to people who step in to save the lives of a person who is overdosing by administering a drug and that we need a National Good samaritan law so that people will step in. How many lives do you think would be saved if we had such a law . We know one of prime issues why people overdose and die is failure to call 911 in an emergency. Clearly, signaling to people that they shouldnt be afraid to call 911 is a significant advancement in how were going to reduce overdose deaths. A Good Samaritan law would help here . Absolutely. Do you agree with that. Yes. And i think thats really something we can do to pass a law which does provide that can samaritan protection. Doctor, isnt it true that for opiate addicts in prison, treatment approach that works bet best is combining medication