From US Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA-9):
"
On July 3, I received the appointment to be the new Chair for the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Following my appointment, I made some of my first public actions visiting rural hospitals and health centers in Southwest Virginia.
My first hospital visit took place in Pennington Gap at the Lee County Community Hospital operated by Ballad Health.
As the new Vice Chair of the Health Subcommittee, Tennessee Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger traveled from East Tennessee to the Lee County hospital to also participate in a roundtable discussion with Ballad Health leadership and staff.
As part of the Health Subcommittee, Vice Chair Harshbarger and I have the ability to influence health care policies in Congress and policymakers from executive agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Some officials expressed their concerns to us about federal changes to the Medicaid state provider tax that passed in the reconciliation act.
Many want to know the impacts of these changes on rural hospitals and their abilities to serve patients.
The topic is particularly sensitive for Lee County Community Hospital, which closed its doors in 2013, due partly to federal policies in Obamacare.
I was proud to work with Senator Warner, Senator Kaine, the community and Ballad Health to reopen the Hospital in 2021. Further, I am committed to ensuring its operations continue.
During our discussions, I made it clear that I will continue pushing policies that help improve rural health care.
This was a consistent discussion theme throughout my hospital visits.
Following our conversations in Lee County, I drove to Richlands in Tazewell County.
The Clinch Valley Medical Center operates as part of Lifepoint Health. The obstetrics and gynecology department that helps deliver babies is the closest such location for many expectant mothers in the region, and for some the only reasonable location option.
After my discussions in Richlands, I traveled east to Giles County.
Carilion Clinic operates Pearisburg’s Carilion Giles Community Hospital.
I spoke with Carilion officials and staff before heading to Blacksburg.
I concluded my Wednesday hospital visits in Blacksburg, where I visited LewisGale Hospital Montgomery.
Each of these hospitals is part of a hospital group.
The following day, I went to Martinsville and toured the Connect Health + Wellness dental facility.
Connect Health + Wellness is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). It is one of 61 FQHCs in the Ninth District, the most of any Congressional district in Virginia.
Aside from Martinsville, Connect also operates separate clinics to provide health services to local residents in Henry and Patrick Counties.
I am committed to using my position on the Health panel to work with Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie so we can analyze the status of our rural hospitals and explore improvements to health care access for rural communities.
I appreciate all of our rural hospital providers for their diligent work to administer health care services to our sick and healthy, young and old.
To help them in their efforts, one potential health care policy solution is increased access to telehealth.
Throughout my tenure on the Health Subcommittee, I have been a consistent proponent of telehealth measures that enable faster access to medical care for patients in rural areas.
I will also be steadfast in monitoring the impacts from the reconciliation bill. One particular provision in the bill establishes a $50 billion rural hospital stabilization fund, but how it will be implemented remains to be seen.
It is necessary that we ensure the funds are appropriately allocated to rural areas that are underserved.
One problem for rural health care is the lack of health care providers. One idea to solve that problem is to expand utilization of money to the National Health Service Corps to pay off student loans for medical providers if they move to a rural area and stay for 2+ years. Often when young health care providers come to our region, they fall in love with the region and the people.
As I begin my chairmanship of the Health Subcommittee, I remain dedicated to improving access and costs for better rural health care. In addition, I look forward to continuing a dialogue with all our rural health care providers. I value their perspective, and that is why my first act as Chairman was to meet with them.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov. Also on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives.
"
I wrote back.
"
Congratulations on the new position! It's a position from which vital changes can be made, not only in keeping a hospital in Lee County but in restoring real health to thousands of people--in Virginia and perhaps around the world.
My online identity is "Priscilla King, Celiactivist." There was a time when my mother and I defined that word in terms of showing people how active and healthy it's possible for us Irish-American celiacs to be. Then in the Obama administration glyphosate went generic and was overused. Chronic digestive disorders, which had been increasing steadily ever since this chemical came onto the market, skyrocketed. By now more people have died from glyphosate-related celiac-like disorders than from COVID--or even from aberrant reactions to the COVID vaccines, some of which are known to be contaminated with glyphosate too. But glyphosate reactions are not limited to gastrointestinal disease. Individuals react differently but, as they pay attention, they find that their consistent reactions may include almost anything. Glyphosate may or may not be a primary carcinogen but its irritant and immune-blocking antibiotic properties obviously promote cancer growth. It can cause neurological and psychological reactions. I've been asked sarcastically if I think glyphosate causes divorce, and answered that I know for a fact that it can cause bursts of bad temper! I've spent much of the last ten years helping to build people's Glyphosate Awareness.
I have been deliberately poisoned with glyphosate and "New Roundup," which is worse, sprayed near and even on my property at night. I know who did it. If I went up to him and clawed a 3x1/2" bleeding strip off his face, I'd go to jail for assault, and rightly so. Nevertheless the law allows this sociopath to use chemicals to tear a 3x1/2" bleeding strip out of my colon and not even go to trial for assault.
As everyone should know, FIFRA regulates pesticides in a loose way that allows anyone to buy and use sufficient quantities of chemicals to commit homicide or suicide, so long as those chemicals are properly registered as "pesticides." The EPA's regulation of glyphosate has been particularly revealing. At epa.gov it's still possible to find documentation that this chemical caused some adverse reaction or other in the majority of animals studied, but since reactions varied widely the mostly corporate-sponsored studies concluded that glyphosate was "safe". It's possible to find documentation that glyphosate raised horrific bleeding lesions across most of the upper body of a laborer who spilled some on himself, and caused another laborer to be paralyzed for more than a month. On the grounds that farmers wanted--had been forced to want--"herbicides" to maintain crop yields (without having to rotate crops as the Bible teaches) and "other herbicides are worse," the EPA used these documents to support the claim that glyphosate is "safe and effective."
The real challenge to this claim has been the increasing evidence that, in the inevitable vicious pesticide cycle, glyphosate has ceased to be effective. It can now be seen to promote the growth of kudzu, Spanish Needles, and jimsonweed, and induce aggressive regrowth in dandelions and chicory, while effectively destroying food plants that have not been bioengineered to tolerate exposure.
In "New Roundup" glyphosate is replaced by a mixture of known carcinogens, neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors, and "vapor drift" crop killers. Glufosinate produces especially nasty reactions in the tiny minority of people who are celiacs and the thousands of people who are not genetic celiacs, but have had celiac-like reactions to glyphosate. Glufosinate is chemically similar to glyphosate and was expected to do even more damage to the human digestive tract. It does.
A quick Google search will show that interest in legal penalties for neighbors who spray pesticides outdoors is rising. Yet FIFRA has been construed as giving these evildoers some sort of "right to spray," and the EPA's pledge to review chemicals faster now has not removed deadly poisons from every Tractor Supply, Rural King, or even Wal-Mart store. In fact they're even sold in "dime" or "dollar" stores. No procedures are in place to keep angry or even prankish fifth grade students from spraying pesticides on "pesty":classmates--or teachers--in sufficient quantities to kill them.
As a result of this I've found it necessary to warn people in the Glyphosate Awareness movement that they should be over age 50, with no children in their homes, before they make public statements about this poison or similar ones.
As everyone remembers, Secretary Kennedy threatened to split the "conservative" vote by making that statement loudly and clearly. We need conservative Congressmen who are willing to conserve our environment, and our health, by making the same statement. They don't need to make it loudly or conspicuously; FIFRA can be revised as quietly as it was written--but it must be revised. As it stands it is a travesty of ethics and justice, legalizing murder if the murderer has done a little research and paid a little money.
You can't call me on the telephone; those things never did work well where I am, and I no longer pay to maintain one. But I would like to meet you, Congressman, or any of your staff, in person the next time you're in Gate City."
Actually I'd like to meet the whole Subcommittee.
