Heather Zierhut, PhD, MD, CGC; Colleen A. Campbell, PhD, MS, LGC
We want to share exciting progress over the last month with our efforts to enact H.R. 2144/S. 1450, the “Access to Genetic Counselor Services Act.”
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our efforts to date and who will join us in our spring push for co-sponsors. If you have not yet signed up for the spring push, our all-hands-on-deck effort to get more members of congress to express support for our bill, we encourage you to do so as we want to keep the momentum going over the next several months. To sign up for meetings with your member of Congress through our spring push, please click HERE.
Here is a summary of high points from the past month of activity:
- We continue to recruit genetic counselors for meetings in key congressional districts so we can increase co-sponsors with particular attention to the committees of jurisdiction over our legislation (House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees and Senate Finance Committee). These are the committees that would consider our legislation and determine whether it would be considered by the full House or Senate.
- As of March 23, we have 89 genetic counselors registered as being interested in meeting with their member of Congress through our Spring Push.
- Genetic counselors were specifically called out in President Biden’s revitalized Cancer Moonshot initiative as playing a key role in expanding cancer screenings and doing so equitably.
- We have a number of valuable opportunities to incorporate our bill language in legislative packages that are expected to move through Congress this year.
- The “Access to Genetic Counselor Services Act” was selected as one of two priorities by the Rare Disease Legislative Advocates during Rare Disease Week 2022. Advocates visited 370 congressional offices.
- We have secured 13 new cosponsors to date in 2022! This is phenomenal progress this early in the year as indicated in the chart below, and we want to keep this momentum going.
Colleen Campbell, Chair of our Advocacy Coordinating Committee, our grassroots efforts to reach out to Congressional offices, provides additional information about our progress and how YOU can help in the video below.
If you have questions or would like additional information on our federal advocacy efforts, please reach out to NSGC at advocacy@nsgc.org.
Don’t forget to sign up for a meeting with your Member of Congress through our Spring Push for co-sponsors! Register Here.
Heather Zierhut, PhD, MD, CGC is the current President of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Outside of her work with NSGC, Heather is a professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development in the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota.
Colleen A. Campbell, PhD, MS, LGC Colleen A. Campbell, PhD, MS, CGC, serves as chair of the NSGC Advocacy Coordinating Committee and is the Director of Genetic Counseling Operations for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics where she oversees the administration, standardization and continuous improvement of genetic counseling operations across the health system. Dr. Campbell led the successful Iowa legislative effort to license genetic counselors.