Protecting Our Infants Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I was pleased to see the Senate pass by unanimous consent just now the bipartisan Protecting Our Infants Act. As prescription drug abuse and heroin use have increased in Kentucky and other States across the Nation, no demographic, socioeconomic status, age, or gender has been left untouched.

As the father of three daughters, particularly concerning to me is the increase in prenatal opiate abuse, which has resulted in a staggering 300-percent increase in the number of infants born suffering from withdrawal symptoms since 2000.

To address this crisis, I introduced the Protecting Our Infants Act, along with my colleague Senator Bob Casey. The bill would direct the Health and Human Services Secretary to conduct a departmental review to identify gaps in research and any duplication, overlap, or gaps in prevention and treatment programs related to this issue. It would also direct the Secretary to work with stakeholders on recommendations to address the problem. Furthermore, this measure would encourage the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with States in an effort to help improve their public health response to this epidemic.

Also, I want to acknowledge the outstanding work of the Senator from New Hampshire, Ms. Kelly Ayotte. I know that one of the things New Hampshire and Kentucky actually, unfortunately, share is that this has reached epidemic proportions. Nobody has been more involved in this issue than the Senator from New Hampshire. She has been on top of it from the very beginning. She shares the concerns of others, obviously, who have States that are suffering from this enormous problem.

I would also like to thank Representatives Katherine Clark and Steve Stivers for leading the effort to advance a similar message in the House of Representatives. I look forward to the House taking up this bill and it being sent to the President for his signature.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I want to thank our leader and thank Senator Casey for introducing and pushing to pass this very important legislation. This legislation, the Protecting Our Infants Act, of which I was proud to be an early sponsor, will help address the increasing number of newborns born with opioid dependency. I thank the additional Members, including the chairman of the HELP Committee and Ranking Member Murray, for helping get that through this important committee.

New Hampshire is facing a public health epidemic. In fact, the heroin and prescription drug addiction crisis is the single most urgent issue facing my State right now. So many families who have lost children have come to me. The other day, I was buying something, and the woman behind the counter said to me: Keep working on this issue. I asked her why. She said: I lost my granddaughter.

Too many families are experiencing losing their loved ones, their family members who are struggling with addiction. Our first responders are inundated. They are saving lives with lifesaving drugs such as Narcan. Public health and safety officials in our State--this is truly something on which we all need to work together to address.

One of the tragic results of this growing opioid abuse epidemic--it has often been overlooked--is the increasing number of infants who are born dependent on opioids and suffering from withdrawal.

Researchers estimate that almost every hour in this country, there is an infant being born who is suffering from withdrawal symptoms or born with dependency symptoms from opioid addiction.

This is an issue which I am so glad is being addressed in this bill, the Protecting Our Infants Act. How we treat our children and our infants is so much a reflection of who we are. That is why I was proud to cosponsor this bipartisan legislation which will call for the development of recommendations to prevent and treat prenatal opioid use, including neonatal abstinence syndrome.

This bill would also ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assist States in data collection and increased surveillance to better monitor the prevalence and causes of neonatal abstinence syndrome so that we can work on more support for prevention, treatment, and recovery to help mothers get support and get into treatment so that we don't have infants who are born with opioid dependence and withdrawal symptoms.

As the leader said, across the Nation the number of infants diagnosed with newborn withdrawal has increased 300 percent since 2000. In my home State of New Hampshire, in May of this year, I visited the Catholic Medical Center in Manchester and heard directly from medical personnel there and first responders who have been treating and responding to cases of newborn withdrawal. Catholic Medical Center officials reported that 7 percent of newborn babies at that hospital were born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. That is a significant increase from last year. According to officials at Catholic Medical Center's Pregnancy Care Center, close to half of the mothers cared for are struggling with addiction.

I thank the leader. I thank Senator Casey. Today's passage of the Protecting Our Infants Act is one very important step to address the crisis of opioid abuse seen in New Hampshire and across this country. Now that we have passed this in the Senate, I want to thank those Members in the House who have led this effort. I hope the House quickly passes this and sends it to the President of the United States.

I hope the Senate will continue to focus on this public health epidemic because there are many solutions that are bipartisan. One is called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. This is a bill I helped introduce with Senator Whitehouse, Senator Portman, and Senator Klobuchar. This is a bill which will deal with prevention so that we can make sure we get that message out to prevent people from overusing and misusing prescription drugs and also turning to heroin. It is so we can have more support for treatment and recovery where there is a big gap in my State and so we can support our first responders and make sure they have access to the lifesaving drug Narcan.

One experience I had recently was I went on a ride-along with our largest police department, and I had previously gone on a ride-along with our largest fire department. Within half an hour of the fire department ride-along, we went to a heroin overdose. I watched the emergency personnel--police, fire, emergency first responders--bring someone back to life using Narcan. When I did the police ride-along, within an hour and a half, we went to two heroin overdoses. Again, first responders saved those two individuals' lives.

I have to tell you, I was a murder prosecutor. I saw a lot of tough things when I was attorney general. But I couldn't breathe when I was sitting in that room and watching that second individual, a young man, on the ground, the first responders doing everything they could, another dose of Narcan--I thought he was gone. This is what our first responders are dealing with every single day.

Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Ms. AYOTTE. Yes.

Mr. McCONNELL. I naively thought that my State was uniquely afflicted with this scourge--we had the drug czar come down to Northern Kentucky, which is a part of my State, a suburb of Cincinnati--only to find that it is a problem all over the country. I was curious as to how this rates with the people of New Hampshire as one of the things they are concerned about.

Ms. AYOTTE. Leader, I will tell you, Director Botticelli came to New Hampshire as well, and he testified at a field hearing Senator Shaheen and I had in New Hampshire. For the people of New Hampshire right now, this is a crisis. It is a public health epidemic. I did a townhall last night, and the single biggest issue I got asked about was this because I believe this is one of the top issues, if not the top issue on the minds of people in New Hampshire because they see their friends and family being impacted by this. Every socioeconomic group is being impacted by, unfortunately, prescription drugs and then heroin, which is so cheap on our streets right now, also sometimes mixed with a deadly drug called Fentanyl. In fact, we had a 60-percent increase in drug deaths. There were 320 drug deaths last year.

Mr. McCONNELL. Now we are losing more to drug overdoses and heroin overdoses than we are losing in car accidents. Is that true in New Hampshire as well?

Ms. AYOTTE. It is the exact same thing in New Hampshire. In our State, more people are dying from heroin, Fentanyl, and abuse of prescription drugs than car accidents, which is staggering when you think about it. This is a national epidemic. That is why I appreciate the bill that was passed today. I think there is more that we in this body could do that would benefit the Nation and would benefit our States of Kentucky and New Hampshire to help give tools to the first responders, the public health officials, treatment providers, those supporting recovery and helping prevent this in the first instance. It is something that would obviously help address this crisis but also something that is a public health issue we should all care about.

Mr. McCONNELL. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for her outstanding work on this important issue. I have a feeling we will be grappling with this in all of its various forms for many years to come.

Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the leader for this bill today, which I am glad was passed, and I look forward to working on additional legislation.

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