Three to Watch for in 2016

With lawmakers back in Washington, we’ll be watching and working on three key issues to help improve the heart and brain health of every Americans. 

• Healthy school meals. As negotiations on a child nutrition bill get closer to the finish line, we’re enormously grateful to the tens of thousands of You’re the Cure advocates who have stood up to urge lawmakers to keep school nutrition standards strong. Since the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was passed in 2010, our kids are getting healthier meals, which have been shown to help improve academic performance and teach students the healthy habits they need to succeed. To learn more about the importance of keeping school food healthy, watch (and share!) a video we recently posted here.

• National Institutes of Health funding. With Congress passing an additional $2 billion in NIH funding at the end of last year, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the impact You’re the Cure advocates had on this critical issue. Hundreds visited Washington to share their stories and push for life-saving research funding, with tens of thousands more weighing in with e-mails to lawmakers and petition signatures. But it’s also critical that we continue the fight: as this video demonstrates, the money we devote to heart and stroke research has led to some of the most important medical innovations of the past few decades, from blood pressure pills to automatic external defibrillators.  

• Access to telestroke care. The Furthering Access to Stroke Telemedicine (FAST) Act is gaining co-sponsors quickly, with more and more lawmakers realizing that increasing telestroke access is vital to reducing stroke fatalities. Doing so will allow doctors to diagnose patients and prescribe the care they need, all with hundreds of miles separating the two. Stay tuned for updates on the You’re the Cure advocates from across the country who will be in Washington on March 1st, urging lawmakers to pledge their support for the FAST Act.