Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 24, 1990 TAG: 9004240200
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The testimony from the wife of Vice President Dan Quayle came during a Capitol Hill hearing on legislation to have federal and state governments share the cost of providing breast X-rays and Pap smears for poor women.
If widely administered, these tests could detect breast and cervical cancer early enough to prevent thousands of women from dying of the diseases each year, witnesses told the health and environment subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"Why don't all women have the simple screening procedures?" testified Dr. Leuella Klein of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. "Although many issues are involved, a critical one is the lack of money to pay for such services. This is particularly true of low-income women. The bill being discussed here today would remove this barrier."
Despite her emotional testimony, Quayle stopped short of endorsing the bill, which has bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. The Bush administration has not announced its position, noted Rep. Edward Madigan, R-Ill., a sponsor of the legislation.
"Immense tragedy comes in a lump the size of a pea," Quayle said during her first appearance on Capitol Hill since her husband took office. She urged women to get regular mammograms and to learn self-examination techniques.
She movingly described how her mother, an Indiana physician, found a lump in her breast but was too busy to immediately get a breast X-ray. At the time, her mother's doctor told her not to worry, Quayle said. "He was fairly certain it was benign."
It wasn't. But by the time Mary Tucker, Quayle's mother, found out, it was too late for surgery and chemotherapy to stop the cancer's spread and she died in 1975 at the age of 56.
The legislation before the subcommittee would provide federal grants to states that set up programs to test low-income women for breast and cervical cancer. The fledgling program would cost $50 million in fiscal year 1991 and match federal to state funds on a 3-1 basis.
by CNB