Friday, July 17, 2009

House Labor, Health and Education Appropriations Vote Today

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote on FY 2010 LHHS Appropriations today. The LHHS Subcommittee proposed nearly flat funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Vision Health Initiative (VHI), a program that has been underfunded for the past three fiscal years.

Prevent Blindness America (PBA) requested $4.5 million for the VHI in FY 2010, and the House Appropriations Committee's allocation falls short of this request. The $4.5 million in funding would sustain and expand PBA's efforts to address the growing public health threat of preventable vision loss among older Americans, low-income, and under-served populations. It would also increase funding to support eye disease surveillance and evaluation systems, to ensure our nation has much-needed epidemiological data regarding overall burden and high-risk populations, so we can formulate and evaluate strategies to prevent and reduce the economic and social costs associated with vision loss and eye diseases.

Prevent Blindness America will focus its advocacy efforts on the Senate now as it begins to consider FY 2010 appropriations. For more information about our appropriations requests and to send a letter to your Senators, go to http://www.preventblindness.org/.

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