LIVE: Bipartisan Women’s Caucus Holds Press Conference on Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2023-10-26 14:31

last name Matsu Matsu so if she's notes she I think she might be committee I don't know I'll just that works so because a lot of people are stucking now so can literally okay great Perfect all right okay you ready okay all right well good morning everybody I uh I apologize I'm a little uh a little froggy this morning so I'll try to be as uh clear as possible but I think the crud is going around so uh we'll do the best we can I am representative cat kamak proudly serving Florida's thirdd congressional district I am also the chairwoman of the women's caucus and as we bring October to a close we would not uh be doing justice to all of the incredible uh Fighters and survivors across this country if we did not recognize that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month uh we know during coid that so many important preventative screenings were put off cancelled postponed kicked down the road and for two years during times where we could critically catch cancer early women were instead pushing those appointments off and now because of the backlog so many women are still waiting and so it is our job today to not only bring awareness but to encourage women everywhere to please go get screened do your annual exams more than 240,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed every single year in women it accounts for about one in three of all new female cancers every single year the average risk of a woman in the United States developing breast cancer sometime in her lifetime which we are seeing earlier and earlier and younger and younger it's about 133% or one in8 it is the second leading cause of cancer death in women the importance of screening is critical and each one of us here today are tributes to our friends our loved ones our family members who have fought and some that have survived and unfortunately some who have not this is critical and I know that given all the things happening in the world there is a lot of urgency but as we all know sometimes times urgency can no longer crowd out the important so I'm proud to stand here with so many amazing women not just as Republicans and Democrats but as American women locked arms to fight this awful awful disease and wouldn't you know it we got one dude and so oh two dudes there's two you snuck up behind me Jared we have two great men who are standing with us as we fight to bring a awareness to this issue as we fight for our survivors for more R&D as we look to combat this disease and I couldn't be more proud so thank you to all of my colleagues who are with me here today to bring awareness to this very very both important and Urgent issue at this time I would like to invite uh my co-chair representative Sykes and uh by the way great outfit I feel like I fell down on the job today thank you so much good morning everyone and thank you for being here and also let me thank cat uh representative kamik for organizing this very important press conference to demonstrate our Unity to end breast cancer my name is Amilia Sykes I am the congresswoman for Ohio's 13th congressional district and I'm also honored to serve as one of the co-chairs of the bipartisan women caucus and I'm certain that everyone here today behind me and watching knows someone who has been impacted by breast cancer whether it is a mother a grandmother a sister a friend an aunt a cousin a child or even yourself this disease knows no political economic geographical boundaries and it doesn't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat if you're from a red state or blue state or purple State uh that's why it's so important for for all of us to work together to find a bipartisan path forward to address the needs of patients families regardless of their political differences at the core ending breast cancer requires making sure everyone has access to quality affordable care at the right time and at the right place as a lawmaker and someone with a public health background I know how important it is to uh get involved and have early screenings and particularly uh this is concern to me as a black woman while black women have a much lower incidence of breast cancer black women are more than 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than our white counterparts and these incredible obstacles that prevent us from getting the screening and the pre the preventative care and the treatment are abysmal startling and just plain right wrong we know that closing the gaps into care and increasing access to quality affordable care uh affordable prevention early detection and treatment options all of these things can help ensure that people their patients and families are protected and most importantly we are saving lives I am proud to co-sponsor critical legislation like the Nancy Gardner Su multi-cancer early detection screening coverage act which has been introduced by our own Terry Terry Su in in honor of her mother would increase access to multi-cancer screenings tests through the Medicare program this vital legislation would help improve our ability to treat and prevent cancer saving the lives of millions of cancer patients across the country but this is only the beginning I am confident in the women and men behind me in this chamber in United States Congress and ensuring that we are protecting the lives of those who are affected by cancer and if I can say and emphasize cats words a representative cck's words it is early detections saves lives if you have put off a screening please use this as a reminder that you should get screened contact your local health health care providers immediately to make sure that you're doing what you can to protect yourself and catching any uh signs of cancers before it extends and grows to something that becomes much more deadly and uncontrollable so I am uh grateful to be with you all today and I am excited to hand off the podium to my good friend from Texas Monica De La Cruz hi good morning I'm congresswoman Monica Dela Cruz representing the 15th congressional district in the great state of Texas today I could not be more honored to be here in front of you here with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and I say that today because one of my very best friends Rosie suffered from breast cancer had a double masectomy and is today having surgery due to that surgery so my heart my prayers and my thoughts are with my very best friend and today it is so meaningful for me to stand up here with my colleagues to show that this is not a red issue it's not a blue issue this is a red white and blue issue for All American women and it is important for us to come together and support each other in this cause for bringing awareness supporting research and diagnosis and supporting the families of those women who are suffering from breast cancer because it's not only the patient but it's the husbands it's the children it's the friends that all are there supporting the brave women going through their cancer treatment but we have good news that God is with us and there are so many beautiful women like my dear friend Rosie who has survived breast cancer and who can survive breast cancer especially with early detection and so today it makes me so proud that after a month of a soap opera Tel Nolla that we've had at the capital that we stand together for something that is important and that is bringing awareness during this month for breast cancer thank you so much for being here today thank you to my colleagues who came today on this gorgeous gorgeous uh day to talk about this important topic and with that being said I'd like to turn the microphone over to congresswoman Maxine Waters thank you thank you thank you thank you and good morning to all of the press That's shown up here today I am so pleased to see you all here covering this very important event but more than that I'd like to thank uh congresswoman Kat kic and Monica Dela Cruz for the leadership that they have provided for us to have this press conference today and all of the work that they're doing and this is especially important because this month we're highlighting breast cancer we are women who not only care about ourselves but we care about all women and we want to make sure that we share the information and that we give the support that is needed for all women to understand how their lives can be saved I have three friends that fall into three different categories I have one one friend who is taking chemotherapy right now who discovered a little bit late we're very hopeful uh that it's going to turn out okay I have another friend that died uh because she did not have early detection and I have a young friend who discovered a lump on her honeymoon and so this is going to be early detection for her uh in self-discovery and I know uh that she's going to be fine but I want you to know too many women are dying that did not have to die uh because they did not understand the importance of early detection too many women of color in particular are dying because they did not understand and take advantage of the opportunities uh to have early detection I believe uh that we can fight cancer we've invested a lot we're going to continue to invest a lot uh from the public public policy standpoint we're going to continue to give support we're going to continue to give Outreach we are doing this because we care so very much about all women and am I proud to be here today in this cooperation in the women's conest that is bipartisan we're not worried about which party we belong to today and I know sometimes we're run and raving about public policy but uhuh not on this issue we're together Democratic women Republican women working together to give information that we know will save lives and so I'm absolutely committed to the proposition that we can save lives and I want all of the women within earshot to understand that we can be very important in the discovery of lumps self-examination still works I want want women not only uh to do that in the shower whenever they have the opportunity to but also get your checkups from your doctors and make sure that you're getting the screenings that are necessary we are committed to doing this and when you see the Democratic women and the Republican women working together you know we must be very serious about this issue and so I was here today not only because I was committed but I re reached out to other women in the Democratic caucus and said please join please be there we all need to be represented and while I was running a little bit late today in my high heels I kept running so that I could get here and share this information with all of you so do us good give us real coverage make it the front pages do everything that you can to ensure that the education and the information gets out thank you very much thank you representative Waters now I'd like to uh welcome a great friend and Doctor representative Miller Meeks or 3M as we call her thank you uh so much cat uh thank you and uh representative Dela Cruz for organizing this and I'm going to speak both as a nurse as a doctor a former director of Public Health where uh breast cancer and screening failed and then all Al the um I had an aunt and my sister uh uh died of breast cancer so three things and we've passed legislation on all three of these things on breast cancer awareness month we want to make sure that women know that there is prevention that there is treatment and that there is recovery so prevention whether it's self- breast exams visiting with your provider mammograms or 3D mammograms changing the age as we've done with veteran women in toxic exposure so that they can get mammograms at an earlier age all of that is part of preventing breast cancer and adding to that the new medicine new science and that is on genetic testing so the availability of those things and the new genetic testing uh new factors that you can test in the blood to detect cancer at a much earlier rate treatment we know that treatment has vastly changed from the time when I was a nurse when we did complete mastectomies to the time now where we do small uh nodular removal leaving the breast to radiation to chemotherapy to individually treated chemotherapy and infusion all of our um the portfolio that we have to treat breast cancer is dramatically changed and has led to the uh increased lives of women and that includes genetic testing as well and then third is recovery and we don't talk about recovery a lot but I think representative Dela Cruz mentioned that with support for families but more than that it's breast reconstruction so a woman can fill whole again or the type of device if they don't want to have a breast reconstruction and improved devices we have legislation on all of those issues so we want women to know that we are here to advance their awareness and let them know that there is prevention there is treatment and there is recovery thank you so much you want me to I'm going to yield now to represent hsky from Illinois thank you I am so honored to be here with this bipartisan group of women and men who support um the uh this this important cause so I want to talk to you about dense breast dense breast right now in the United States of America 43,000 women die each year from breast cancer and many of them it's just been undiagnosed or misdiagnosed and it turns out that 71% of the women who die and no who who are diagnosed with breast cancer have something called dense breast so early detection is very very important but it doesn't always catch if you have a mamogram uh regular mamogram doesn't always catch dense breasts this is not something that if you do your own breast examination that you NE necessarily feel but about half of women have dense breasts and um 708 uh 1% of the women as I said who are diagnosed have dense breasts so early detection is very very important so we have to pass the legislation that we're all here about but I also want to mention that we have a a a bill um called find it early that says that women who need to be diagnosed to see if they have dense breasts when you find out that you have Den breast and you need a different kind of examination it can cost up to $800 to be able to get that examination in other words a mamogram can be free but the other diagnostic techniques can cost up to $800 and many women say forget it I'm not going to do it I can't afford it so our uh uh additional legislation that find it early act would say that any kind of diagnostic diagnostic testing for breast cancer has to be free of charge so let us pass the legislation to ca to make sure that we have early diagnosis and let's also make sure that we passed legislation the find it early bill to make sure that women the mo the almost half the women in the country that have dense breasts get the kind of attention that they need and the diagnosis that they need for free so we stand here on behalf of women we stand here in a bipartisan way our um wonderful um men colleagues have joined with us and we can get this done we have to get this done so many women dying of breast cancer um in the United States of America shame on us when we can do something about it that's why we are here thank you so much good morning I'm Debbie wman Schultz I represent Florida's 25th congressional district and at 41 years old just after I had my first mamogram I was doing a routine self- exam in the shower and I found a lump since my mammogram had come back clean with no evidence of cancer I thought this couldn't possibly be breast cancer but it it turned out that it was I subsequently found out that I was the carrier of the bracka 2 genetic mutation which as an ashkanazi Jewish woman made me five times more likely throughout my lifetime to get breast cancer and had between a 40 and 85% chance of getting ovarian cancer in my lifetime I tell you this story briefly because we are all here United together to say that early detection is the key to survival I honestly would not be standing in front of you today potentially had I not been aware enough to do a self- exam to know what was normal for me so I knew when something felt different early screening making sure that you do self-exam that young women are familiar with their breast and what they normally feel like so that they have a chance to be able to detect it early I passed legislation into law called the early act the education and awareness requires learning young act that is appropriated over time $40 million towards educating and raising awareness in young women cu so often they are dismissive of you know their own health they think that they're Invincible doctors when women young women come in with a problem um send them home and say oh you know it's probably just a cyst or young women perceive that young women don't get breast cancer even the United States preventative Services Task Force which all of us have fought against in order to try to preserve the ability of women between 40 and 50 to begin their mamography screening still even though they have made a CH Chang recently suggest that women who are 40 don't need to get a mammogram every year they do as do and experts in cancer and Radiology say that consistently it's why in the law in a bipartisan way we've prohibited the implementation of that legislation I've sponsored the reducing hereditary bre hereditary cancer act many of the women behind me have uh and Men our co-sponsors Medicare actually only allows for a genetic test for someone in Medicare when it even if they have immediate family who like like mine did who have a genetic mutation to to they can only time they can get a genetic test is if they already have breast cancer news flash breast cancer and any cancer is more expensive to treat than simply allowing someone to get a genetic test when they have an immediate family member uh and and be able to avoid getting cancer or catching it early that's the key message message that we have thank you so much we're here in solidarity during breast cancer awareness month and we have so much comprehensive effort to eradicate Cancer and a as as a Survivor with many of my sister survivors and uh and and those that love us uh we appreciate the effort so much thank you good morning I am congresswoman Jennifer mlen from Virginia's fourth district and as the newest member of Congress and the first black women elected from Virginia I am keenly aware as you have heard that black women are more likely to die uh from breast cancer and are more likely to be diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer which is an aggressive form of the disease that does not have targeted therapies and that is why we stand here today United to say how important early detection is and how important uh mammograms and early screenings are so important that I have my mamogram schedu schu for tomorrow morning and I'm very glad that we are able to go home tomorrow because as you heard with the backlog getting those screenings scheduled is very difficult you've heard about a lot of the legislation that has already been introduced that we are supporting I will quickly name two more before turning it over to my next colleague and that is uh the screens for cancer act uh to reauthorize the National Breast and cervical cancer early detection program to provide cancer screening and diagnostic services to uninsured underinsured and lowincome Americans who do not qualify for Medicaid I'm also proud to co-sponsor the metastic breast cancer uh access to Care Act to cut bureaucratic red tape and ensure that men and women suffering from metastatic breast cancer because it's important to note men can get breast cancer too but this bill will ensure they can access the services and treatments that they need without having to wait for their social security disability insurance insurance or Medicare benefits to kick in because bureaucratic red tape insurance companies should not stand in the way of you getting your screening or your treatment we need to do all that we can to ensure early detection early treatment and as someone who is very proud to represent the Massie Cancer Center which is doing amazing things uh in cancer detection and treatment we must ensure that we have sufficient funding for research and development to to address cancer once and for all with that I would like to turn it over to my colleague Freda Wilson of Florida thank you so much for coming I cannot emphasize how important it is for us to be standing here today and even though we have gone through a lot of partisan big aning in the past few months for all of these women and men to come together on this important issue is wonderful I cannot think of anything more important happening in Congress today than what is happening at this press conference so thank you and I also want you to be aware and I want to emphasize size while breast cancer predominantly affects women any gender including trans nonbinary folks and men can also suffer from breast or chest cancer they are all equally part of our fight against breast cancer I've met many of them and I'm so so proud that our president President Biden has put cancer at the top of his agenda and in Congress we remain United Republicans and Democrats and supporting legislative efforts to support those affected by breast cancer only together only together can we break down the barriers to except and ensure that every person has the opportunity to receive this Critical Care let's stand together let's continue to fight let's continue to fight against breast cancer because to together there is nothing we cannot achieve thank you well I first want to thank all of my colleagues who have joined me here today including two of our fellas uh representative Langworthy and representative moscowitz it really is a bipartisan issue and I just cannot thank you enough for being here to cover this this truly is an epidemic that we need to confront headon this is not a republican issue it is not a Democrat issue this is an American issue is a woman's issue and we are united in the fight against breast cancer and again thank you all so much for being here we're happy to entertain any questions about the legislation that uh so many of my colleagues have undertaken if you have any questions we'll happy be happy to take them now seeing none we will get out of the Sun and get back to work so thank you all so much yeah yeah let's do right here right around the sign yep there and there's a sign too yeah and actually we could put the sign right here right okay you're tall here we're we we're here if you if you know what yeah here take it off take it off oh was it tape see this is women solving problems we'll staff ourselves oh here here and here if you do that I can hold it oh yeah there we go does that work exactly collegiality teamwork sister we got this figured out right oh all right here to make these look good everybody start looking this way and then we will slowly pan your direction okay look here and we're moving okay and we're moving okay and we're moving okay that's a good idea yeah that's how you do it okay um excuse Meely standing here thank you everybody okay great job great job great job thank you best thank you so much yeah thank you that