Traumatic brain injury is a "silent epidemic" that kills more than 50,000 Americans a year, a lawmaker said as the House passed a bipartisan bill to promote treatment for survivors.
"Traumatic brain injury has become the No. 1 killer and cause of disability among young people in this country," said Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa.The bill passed by voice vote Tuesday seeks $24.5 million for research on lessening the damage to the brain from the injuries and improving victims' access to services, all to be spent in fiscal years 1997 through 1999.
"It's a silent epidemic, quietly claiming its young victims without the sort of public alarm that would accompany any infectious disease outbreak of this magnitude," said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J.
Because of advances in getting victims quickly to high-tech trauma centers, thousands more are surviving what once would have killed them, Greenwood said. The problem now is to provide long-term care and therapy so they can return to their homes and lives, he said.
Caring for such survivors costs more than $98 billion, Pallone estimated. He said nearly 2 million Americans suffer traumatic brain injuries each year, with 500,000 hospitalized, 90,000 suffering irreversible loss of function and more than 50,000 dying, "many of them in the prime of their lives."
The Senate has not yet acted on the measure.
Unlike the bipartisan support of that bill, partisan rancor marked debate on a separate resolution that would count the costs of regulation and direct spending for government in determining how much government costs the American people.
This year, said the primary sponsor, Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, "July 3rd was when Americans gained their freedom from paying off the government." He requested a roll call vote, and it was scheduled for today.
Rep. James Moran, D-Va., criticized the resolution's emphasis on the costs and not the benefits of government and its regulations. He said the resolution itself "really is a waste of taxpayer dollars."
According to the resolution, federal, state and local governments cost $3.38 trillion annually and federal regulatory costs exceed $730 billion.
"If the average American worker were to spend all of his or her gross earnings on nothing else besides meeting his or her share of the total cost of government for the current year, that total cost would not be met until July 3, 1996," the resolution says.
In other action Tuesday, the House by voice vote approved a measure to revise a 1993 law to update rules allowing interstate armored car crews to carry firearms legally across state lines. Bipartisan supporters described the changes as technical improvements.