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Rep. Erik Paulsen

Madam Speaker, 48,000 Americans a year walk out of their doctor's office with the news that they have pulmonary fibrosis, joining the nearly 200,000 Americans already afflicted with this little understood killer. There is no known cure for this lethal lung disease, which takes the life of an American on average every 13 seconds, more than 40,000 individuals annually, roughly the same number as those afflicted with breast cancer.

This week is National Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Week, and I ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring the Pulmonary Fibrosis Research Enhancement Act. This bipartisan legislation will create a national registry, encourage Federal research at the National Institutes of Health, and also create a national action plan so that we can better understand this deadly disease and one day discover an effective treatment.

Madam Speaker, this effort is really critical to giving hope to the hundreds of thousands of people who live with this debilitating disease.