AHA responds to the House failure to override Bush HHS appropriations veto
Daniel W. Jones, MD, president of the American Heart Association, responded when the U.S. House of Representatives failure to override President Bush's veto of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations. He said, “Hope of making significant gains in the fight against heart disease and stroke was dealt a severe blow today, with the vote in the House of Representatives to sustain the President's veto of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill.”

The House with a 277-141 vote last week failed to override a presidential veto of a $606 billion fiscal year 2008 Labor-HHS-Education (H.R. 3043) appropriations bill.

“Future scientific breakthroughs in the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases will be much less likely without this funding,” Jones said. “The funding levels in this bill would have allowed the National Institutes of Health to support groundbreaking research for heart disease, and given states the tools they need to translate research into guidance on how to live free of cardiovascular disease and stroke.”

Jones concluded by cautioning members of Congress, “we implore members to retain these funding levels. We can't continue to wage a strong and sustained fight to build lives free of heart disease and stroke unless we are armed with the resources to win the battle.”
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