Washington, DC – The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved a $604.4 billion spending bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for fiscal year 2006 that includes provisions sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) encouraging more research into perchlorate exposure and urging that funding be spent to fight tuberculosis outbreaks.

Perchlorate Report Language

The report language encourages the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in collaboration with the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIES), to administer research grants for studies that focus on better understanding of the long-term health effects of perchlorate exposure on humans and determining with greater certainty what perchlorate exposures are safe for the most vulnerable populations.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report released in January 2005 on the “Health Implications of Perchlorate Ingestion” concluded that additional studies needed to be done to determine the effects in humans of chronic low-dose exposures to perchlorate and the effects of perchlorate on sensitive populations. The report language urges the NIH to award research grants for the types of studies recommended by the NAS.

“The National Academy of Sciences identified a number of areas where more information is needed on how perchlorate exposure affects humans,” Senator Feinstein said. “With this language, we seek to fill the gaps. It is absolutely critical that we learn as much as we can about the dangers of perchlorate exposure, so that we can adequately protect all Americans from harm due to perchlorate contamination.”

The language reads:

“The Committee encourages the Institute to support clinical, mechanistic, and epidemiological studies that focus on establishing a better understanding of the long-term health effects of perchlorate exposure on humans and determining with greater certainty what perchlorate exposures are safe for the most vulnerable populations.  

The Committee encourages the NIEHS to give priority to:

• clinical studies on humans or primates designed to provide information on the effects of long-term exposures to low doses of perchlorate;  

• the design and implementation of innovative epidemiological studies that assess the possible health effects of perchlorate exposure on the most vulnerable populations, including pregnant women and their fetuses and newborns, and involve appropriate control populations; and/or  

• in vitro studies of the perchlorate influence on placental and breast iodide transport using human tissues and animals studies, and the effects of perchlorate on development independent of effects on iodide transport.”

Tuberculosis Report Language

The report language encourages the Centers for Disease Control to make resources available to States facing tuberculosis outbreaks among their refugee population.

“Tuberculosis poses a major public health threat in California , especially in the Hmong community,” Senator Feinstein said. “There have been more than 25 cases among 3,400 Hmong refugees community in just the past 10 months and four of these cases are multi-drug resistant. That’s why it is essential that the CDC direct resources to California and other states faced with treating and controlling tuberculosis outbreaks in their refugee population. ”

The language reads:

“The Committee is aware that refugees entering the United States with TB pose a serious public health threat. In particular, multidrug resistant TB cases pose the deadliest and costliest risk. The Committee recognizes that over the past year an outbreak of TB has occurred among Hmong refugees from Thailand who have resettled in the United States, mainly in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. In California alone, local health departments have detected 25 TB cases among 3400 Hmong refugees from Thailand in the last 10 months, four of which are multidrug resistant. The Committee urges CDC to make resources available to States facing TB outbreaks among their refugee population.”

Senator Feinstein successfully fought for language in the FY05 Labor-HHS appropriations bill to ensure that the Centers for Disease Control make funds for tuberculosis available to states based on the number of its tuberculosis cases. Last year, California had 21 percent of the total number of tuberculosis cases in the United States but only received 18 percent of tuberculosis funding from the CDC.