{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/us-house-passes-medical-cures-bill-championed-by-diana-degette", "U.S. House Passes Medical Cures Bill Championed by Diana DeGette", "2016-12-02", "2016", "2016-12", "Democrat", "House", "CO", "Diana DeGette", "D000197", "degette.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON \u2014 A bill that would make sweeping changes to the medical research field passed the U.S. House on Wednesday, getting U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver that much closer to securing a win for her top legislative priority.\nThe 392-26 vote was a larger margin\u00a0than the 344-77 vote that backed a 2015 version of the bill,\u00a0but came as some Senate Democrats and progressive groups raised concerns over whether the measure does too much to help drug and medical-device companies.\nEvery member of Colorado\u2019s U.S. House delegation, except for Rep. Ken Buck, R-Windsor, supported the 21st Century Cures Act.\nBackers of the bill said they were hopeful they would send the measure to President Barack Obama \u2014 who wants to see it passed \u2014 before Congress ends its current term.\n\u201cThis is a watershed moment in this country for bio-medical research,\u201d said DeGette, who championed the bill with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. \u201cWith this bill, we bring hope to millions of patents who suffer from cancer, Alzheimer\u2019s, diabetes and a host of other ailments.\u201d\nThe next step is the Senate, where liberal lawmakers such as Bernie Sanders, Dick Durbin and Elizabeth Warren have\u00a0raised concerns\u00a0about whether the bill would overly weaken standards for the approval of drugs and other therapies in an effort to more quickly get them in the hands of patients.\n\u201cThis bill isn\u2019t about doing what the American people want,\u201d Warren said. \u201cThis bill is about doing what drug companies and (political) donors want.\u201d\nBuck said Wednesday he opposed the bill due to its cost.\u00a0\u201cIt spends too much money. It\u2019s that simple,\u201d he said.\nKaiser Health News this week\u00a0reported\u00a0that the $6.3 billion measure was one of the most heavily lobbied pieces of legislation this Congress, with more than 1,400 lobbyists involved in trying to influence the bill\u2019s language, which runs roughly 1,000 pages.\nIn this 2016 election cycle, health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry were the two biggest contributors to DeGette\u2019s campaign \u2013 giving a combined $275,180, according to the Center of Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog.\nMichael Carome, of the consumer-rights group Public Citizen, said the current version would require that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration develop a program that would make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to get approval to repurpose old drugs to treat new afflictions \u2014 such as using a drug for lung cancer to treat breast cancer, he said.\n\u201cThat\u2019s a troubling provision,\u201d he said. \u201cIt further erodes the standards of approving drugs.\u201d\nStill, Carome said legislators had removed two troubling items.\nNo longer will the bill help drug companies extend the exclusivity of some medications to treat rare afflictions \u2014 and in the process delay the rollout of cheaper, generic drugs.\nAlso cut was a section that would have weakened the reporting requirements of gifts that medical companies give to doctors. Lawmakers such as U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had threatened to\u00a0block the bill if that clause wasn\u2019t removed.\nU.S. Sen. Michael Bennet did not say Wednesday whether he planned to support the bill, although the Colorado Democrat had been involved in earlier efforts on the Senate side to fast-track new drugs to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria.\n\u201cMichael is reviewing the bill and encouraged by the efforts to address antibiotic-resistant superbugs, safely speed up the FDA approval process to save lives, and provide clarity for health care mobile app developers,\u201d said Laurie Cipriano, a Bennet spokeswoman, in a statement.\nWhatever Democratic effort exists to stop the bill in the Senate could be stymied by the White House, which strongly backed its passage this week.\nIn addition to the bill\u2019s push to make it easier for medical researchers to collaborate, it also takes steps to address the opioid drug epidemic and to jumpstart a \u201cmoonshot\u201d effort to cure cancer \u2014 a major priority for Vice President Joe Biden.\nThe $1.8 billion moonshot plan \u201caims to accelerate research efforts and make new therapies available to more patients, while also improving our ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage,\u201d administration officials said in their analysis of the bill.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/us-house-passes-medical-cures-bill-championed-by-diana-degette"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7211149204522371, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}