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Congressman C. W. Bill Young: Commitment to Health and Biomedical Research

Congressman C. W. Bill Young (R-Indian Shores) is serving his 19th term in Congress as a representative of the Tenth Congressional District of Florida.  He is the senior member of the Florida congressional delegation and the senior Republican in the House of Representatives.

Over the years, Congressman Young has been tenacious in advocating for biomedical research and public health programs – especially for children, the elderly and others who are most vulnerable.  He has led an effort to improve the quality of medical care available for our nation's children. He successfully fought for federal funding for the effort to eradicate polio worldwide, to train emergency medical personnel to meet the special needs of children and to increase the immunization rate for preschoolers.  Rep. Young has been particularly interested in ensuring that more clinical trials are conducted on pharmaceutical drugs given to children and has advocated establishing a solid science base for dosage recommendations for children. Several years ago, Congressman Young initiated a new federal activity to provide direct funding for Pediatric Graduate Medical Education – a program that has now provided over $1 billion since its inception to support the training of doctors in our nation’s children’s hospitals.

But the numbers don’t tell the whole story.  Congressman Young has a deep and abiding commitment to help children and has spent countless hours at All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg over the years getting to know families and helping them with the daily aspects of caring for sick children.  Many times the Youngs have provided respite to parents, taking an evening shift for the parents to allow them to go home and get some sleep. The Youngs have rocked preemies in their arms while their parents were needed elsewhere. They have held a young child’s hand while catheters and needles were inserted.  They have provided encouragement to dying children and to those facing life threatening disease for the first time.  Rep. Young often visits on holidays, giving up his own personal time to provide comfort to families of children confined to the Hospital.

Most notably, Congressman Young established the international registry of volunteers willing to donate bone marrow to save the life of another person. The National Marrow Donor Program he founded in 1986 now includes more than 6.5 million volunteers who hold the key to life for patients with leukemia or any one of 60 otherwise fatal disorders. Through the registry, more than 30,000 transplants have been achieved as well as 2000 transplants of umbilical cord blood. Congress through public law in 2005 named this international life-saving program, which COngressman Young established with a small appropriation to the Navy in 1985, as the "C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program".

Through his Committee work, Chairman Young has taken action to enhance research efforts in many areas, including the full spectrum of cancer research, neuroscience, Parkinson’s Disease, Tourette Syndrome, Sickle Cell Disease, ALS, AIDS, oral health research, Alzheimer’s Disease, asthma, diabetes, arthritis, vision loss and blindness, lupus, Chromosome 18, muscular dystrophy, heart disease and stroke, polycystic kidney disease, organ transplantation, maternal and child health, substance abuse and mental health, and dystonia. He is a champion of maintaining a strong public health infrastructure through the Centers for Disease Control and its public health programs. Additionally, he has initiated new medical research efforts for breast cancer, prostate cancer, neurofibromatosis, Parkinson’s, Diabetes, and other areas through the Department of Defense appropriations process, providing billions of dollars in new funding for peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Congressman and Mrs. Young are the proud parents of three boys; Rob 28, Billy 21, and Patrick 18.