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CQ's WASHINGTON ALERT SENATOR MACK'S ROLE IN MEDICAL RESEARCH ISSUES BY SENATOR CONNIE MACK JUNE 30,_ 199_8 *Press releases* (REPORTER'S BRIEFCASE; 06/30/98; 59 lines) Item Key: 14718 COPYRIGHT 1998 BY FEDERAL DOCUMENT CLEARING HOUSE, INC. WAS~-NGTON, D.C. uIS.A. Contact: Nancy Segerdahl/Kerry Fennelly (202)224-6769 SENATOR MACK, S-ROLE IN-MEDICALRESEARCH ISSUES Mack;has introduced ]egi~lafi0n to double funding-t0 the ~- Nati.o_nal Institutes of Health f o~ basic medi6aI research Over t~e next five years. He recently held a press Conference with Christopher Reeve and Mary Tyler Moore to stress the importance of the different disease groups uniting behind this goal -- doubling funding for basic research at NIH- instead of competing against one another for scarce and valuable resource dollars. - Earlier this year, Senator Mack testified before the Senate Commerce Committee to voice his support for a consensual tobacco agreement. He stressed the importance of any agreement containing significant funding for medical research so that tobacco companies would help pay for research into the very diseases their products helped cause. - As debate ontobac~o progessed on the Sena~efloor, Mack felt the bill had lost its focus and was no longer aimed at reducing teen smoking and funding medical research. As a result, he did not support the bill in its final form. TI3630-0245

- Senator Mack is a survivor of melanoma. His wife, Priscilla is a cancer survivor, Their daughter is a cervical cancer survivor. Mack lost his younger brother, Michael, to melanoma- His rattier, now deceased, had esophageal cancer, and his mother, also deceased, had kidney cancer. - Mack is co-chairman of the Senate Cancer Coalition with Senator Diane Fienstein (D-CA). In the upcoming weeks, the Senate Cancer Coalition will be holding a hearing, "Cancer Treatments for the 21st Century" to discuss recent .discoveries in cutting-edge cancer research and to discuss the issue of access to, and insurance coverage of, cancer clinical trials for cancer patients. Mack has introduced legislation with Senator Jay l~ockefeller (D-WV), "The Medicare Cancer Clinical Trial Coverage Act of 1997 which would provide coverage for Medicare beneficiaries to participate in certain clinical trials _i~i. aftet~eyhave.exhlausted.all traditionhl trea_ixnent-fptio~.- __ Under cur~_ent law, Medi~iare will hot'pay f~_~ thec0sts of patient _ carejfthey am participating in c!inical trialsbecause these --therapies are-experimental. - Mack and his wife, Priscilla; are very active inspreading the message that early detection saves lives. Priscilla Mack is Executive C0-chair of National Race for the Cure and travels throughout the state of Florida spreading the message of early detection for the Florida Chapter of the American Cancer Society. TI3630-0246