Senator Dodd: “Foreclosure crisis is the root cause of the larger financial crisis”

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing today on "Oversight of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act: Examining Financial Institution Use of Funding Under the Capital Purchase Program."

Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) voiced his concerns over how the money for the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) was being used.

"The acceptance of public funding carries with it a public obligation," said Dodd. "One cannot benefit from taxpayer support in all its many forms and assume that one has no duty to serve that same taxpayer."

Dodd expected lenders who received some of the $700 billion to preserve homeownership. “The foreclosure crisis is the root cause of the larger financial crisis...Until we solve the foreclosure problem, we will not have any hope of solving larger economic problems.”

The Senator was critical of lenders who had received public funds and used the money to buy other financial firms or give their executives benefits rather than give out loans. “Credit is the lifeblood of the economy...Lenders have a duty to use these funds to make affordable loans to credit-worthy borrowers on reasonable terms,” said Dodd. “If they do not, then in my view they are acting outside the clear intent of the statute and should reform their actions immediately,” he concluded.

Death by peanut

She feels like she’s taking her child into a war zone, where each place has a potential for death.

It was the sentiment expressed by Rhonda Adkins, wife of country music superstar Trace Adkins, but largely echoed throughout the room by parents of food allergic children. The topic was “Five Steps Forward for Food Allergy,” held in honor of the 11th Annual Food Allergy Awareness Week. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), himself a grandfather of a child with food allergies, spoke briefly before the group, saying that it is clear that this is a growing threat to our young people, and awareness needs to increase.

Lack of awareness about food allergies is common. Most people are not aware that serious complications, such as anaphylaxis, can occur within minutes of exposure to a food allergen. Anaphylaxis can kill, because the reaction is so severe that the throat will close, and the individual will literally suffocate during an allergic reaction. Some children and adults are so sensitive to an allergen, such as peanuts, that they can have a reaction just from invisible residue on someone’s hands or from fumes floating in the air.

Such reactions are what Anne Munoz-Furlong wants to avoid. She is the founder of FAAN, the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network. The goal of the organization is to raise public awareness about food allergies, and during Food Allergy Awareness Week (May 11-17) their agenda is to promote the Five Steps Forward. School Guidelines, Food Allergy Information, Guidelines for Diagnosis, Research, and Improved Allergen Labeling, are the Five Steps Forward. Legislation is on the table for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act of 2008, namely S. 1232 and H.R. 2063.

Cancer research gets this much money, said Kyle Ericson, a 10-year-old boy with severe food allergies, as he held his arms out as far as he could. Diabetes Type II, he said, as he shortened his arm span, not quite as much. But food allergies, he continued, putting his hands almost completely together, gets almost nothing at all. Dr. Hugh Sampson, Professor of Pediatrics and Immunology and Director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, has been researching a vaccine to help cure peanut allergies.

After identifying the three proteins that are causing allergic reactions, Sampson said, they worked on a way to “fix the peanut,” essentially creating something that may well end up being the cure for peanut allergies. Tests have been done on peanut allergic mice, and apparently, the mice are no longer allergic to peanuts after receiving the treatment. Although he is not about to state they’ve found the cure, paperwork will be submitted to the FDA in June so that human trials would be able to commence.

The largest hindrance to the challenge of food allergies, is the lack of knowledge in the average person, and money for research to learn more about the “why” of allergies. Peanut allergies in children under age five doubled in the years between 1997-2002, and there are a multitude of theories. The most common theory of late is the Hygiene hypothesis, which says that our over-clean society has actually made our immune systems weaker. A second theory, mentioned by Mrs. Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of Senator Chris Dodd, is what is nicknamed the “Costco Theory,” stating that an overabundance of particular foods is causing the reactions.

More research is needed, said Dr. Sampson, and more money needs to be appropriated towards research. The Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease were the two institutions he pointed out as likely to be helpful in the search for a cure for food allergies.