ministrative and management field and also have the necessary science background.

I think that Secretary Sullivan and President Bush are going to be able to attract one of those people on the list due to the work that the advisory committee is doing and the changes we have already made and those changes that Secretary Sullivan and I can bring about.

With the promise that Congress will help us in the future with salaries, tenure and a number of other things, I think we have something worth offering. I believe there are candidates out there who would like to come and lead the nation's premier Biomedical Research Institute as we go into the 21st Century.

Mr. CONTE. So you do have a list?

Dr. MASON. Yes.

Mr. CONTE. There has been talk of a six-year term for the director, is anything moving on that?

Dr. MASON. That was one of the recommendations of the committee, that the person have tenure like the Surgeon General. That would help a person, if they felt they would be there long enough to invest in moving ahead and giving us the plan the nation needs. Mr. CONTE. And not being thrown out with the new Administration coming in?

Dr. MASON. Yes, I don't want to go into details but I don't think there has been as much of that as is commonly perceived.

Mr. CONTE. I am glad to hear that. But that fear is there. There is a perception by all means.

Dr. MASON. I agree with you there.

Mr. CONTE. Well, the whole country is topsy turvey. We gave ourselves a pay raise and we got criticized. I voted for it. It is not that people like Bill Natcher and I have been here a long time. It is the twilight of our career but I felt there were a lot of people out there in the government especially at NIH and other parts of the government who were grossly underpaid. I have nothing against at least, as my friend knows, by comparison what they are getting, $1,000,000, $2,000,000 a year in baseball and football, look at the socalled championship fight, the Tyson fight. Here you have scientists who can maybe save the world, maybe come up with a cure for cancer or AIDS and something else and you are paying them a pittance.

The scientists will come up with a cure for some of these diseases. Yet the public just does not understand it. They don't get behind us. I hope we will get our bill through. I will put everything I have behind it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NATCHER. Mr. Stokes.

SCIENCE EDUCATION

Mr. STOKES. Thank you. It is nice to welcome you before our subcommittee this morning.

I was pleased to hear your comment a moment ago, Dr. Mason, relative to the field of science and what we need to be doing. I learned in a hearing a few days ago with the Director of the National Science Foundation that only 6 to 7 percent of American stu

dents graduating from high school today are prepared for college level science courses.

That is a sad commentary reflective upon our academic preparation for the students who are contemplating going to college. Compounding this problem, many of these young people, instead of going into engineering and fields of that sort, now are going into finance, accounting, and law. We also find now that more than 50 percent of the engineering schools in this country are occupied with foreign students as opposed to American students. So there is a very real educational problem in this country.

OFFICE OF MINORITY HEALTH

I was pleased to see the increase in the President's proposal for the Office of Minority Health. But it appears that all this money would not remain there. Would some of these funds be passed through OMB to other agencies?

Dr. MASON. The increase Secretary Sullivan requested was a total of $117,000,000. Of that, approximately $11,000,000 will go to the Office of Minority Health. The rest of that will be going to the Health Resources and Services Administration where it will be specifically used for beefing up the National Health Service Corps and be specifically targeted to minority physicians and other health care providers.

It will go for training of minority health care professionals. So it is being distributed largely in those two programs-Health Resources and Services Administration and the Office of Minority Health. Dr. Robinson, do you want to comment on that?

Mr. STOKES. What I am really getting at is some of these funds are going to be used to support an HHS-HUD initiative, as well as projects with other agencies within HHS. That is what we get from the budget justification.

Dr. ROBINSON. That is right. That is the administration proposal. That is what was put forth in the budget submission. The specifics of that program will be discussed with the committee this afternoon when HRSA comes to testify. I can give you some specifics in how we will attempt to utilize that $10,000,000 for minority health. The other proposals are part of a broader strategy not to just target the Office of Minority Health and its programs but to see how the Department overall can utilize other potential avenues to address minority health issues. The HUD initiative is something that is really new. The Secretary just, I think it was the end of January, signed an agreement with Secretary Kemp from Housing and Urban Development for a new initiative under which we in HHS will be collaborating with HUD to try to do some things to address the issues of homeless people, people who have problems maintaining homes or even finding rental homes, tying those problems in with other social problems that affect social security, medicaid constituents and others.

We need to collaborate better. This initiative for the $35,000,000 is going to be potentially one aspect of this broader activity that the Secretary wants to accomplish.

The other activities are more specific and are geared toward some interaction with the National Health Service Corps programs

and other programs aimed at students and some minority institutions. Again, I think the group that will come in this afternoon can give you better information on that.

Mr. STOKES. Maybe we will defer some of the questioning for them. I get a little different picture from my reading of the justifications than what you are telling me this morning.

MINORITY HEALTH INITIATIVE

Dr. MASON. If I could comment on that, I think this goes back to the purpose in creating an Office of Minority Health in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.

We don't want to create another agency for minority health where large amounts of money would be available for direct spending from the Office of Minority Health.

The office has a role to be a catalyst, a coordinator and to be an alter ego and a conscience to the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Secretary. We want each of the agencies, CDC, NIH, ADAMHA, HRSA, Indian Health Service, to be targeting minority health and get in tune with getting services to disadvantaged people.

The delivery system will continue to be in the agencies of the Public Health Service. Bill Robinson and his staff, working with the Secretary, and me, will see that those things are occurring in the delivery programs to assure that minority concerns are being considered with the expenditure of every dollar of the total $15,000,000,000 in the Public Health Service.

Mr. STOKES. Dr. Mason, what I was trying to get at here, in terms of the $11,600,000 increase for the Office of Minority Health, whether that money will stay in the Office of Minority Health or whether it is utilized to deliver services through other agencies such as HUD.

Dr. ROBINSON. That $35,000,000 proposed for collaboration with HUD is what I want to keep aside from the current discussion of the Office of Minority Health because that is a different issue. That money will not be transferred to HUD. The intention is to develop collaborative programs, new demonstration activities that are not in existence at this time.

Let me set that aside for now. In terms of the increase that would come to the Office of Minority Health, we are hoping to use at least $4,000,000 of that as a catalyst, stimulus for inter-agency and cooperative agreements.

There are many things that are happening to improve minority health but we do not have enough of a minority emphasis in spite of the many billions of dollars in resources that are in the Department. One example is: In the Centers for Disease Control, the National Center for Health Statistics conducts a number of studies through which they collect data on the population at large. At times it is important to have specific information for sub-segments of the population, Hispanic, Black, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, et cetera.

What we would do with some of that money potentially is to piggyback on some existing surveys such that they can effectively address minority data needs by over-sampling specific population

groups. We need the data for minorities and it would not come out if they did not have the additional support.

We will try to piggyback on some activities and encourage new activities in the Indian Health Service and Centers for Disease Control. The Indian Health Service has a number of programs addressing the needs of the American Indian population but it is mostly reservation facilities. We have a significant concern about the Indian population in cities and off reservation, who are not benefiting from some of those programs.

So we would collaborate with IHS to try to use some of that money to try to help them develop additional programs. The idea is to be a catalyst, coordinate and collaborate inter-agency agreements so our money can seed additional activities in that area.

MINORITY HEALTH-UPDATE TASK FORCE REPORT

Mr. STOKES. I note that $1,000,000 is being proposed in the President's budget for the purpose of reexamining the findings of the original minority health task force appointed by Secretary Heckler. What is the purpose of a reexamination in light of the fact that even by your own remarks this morning at the beginning of your statement we know that black males are dying six years earlier than white males?

We have seen no real concrete evidence of the fact that there has been any appreciable or significant eradication of the disparities between black and white health in America over the last five years since the report came out. What is the purpose of the reexamination of the original report?

Dr. MASON. The report was commissioned and completed in 1985. It used data that was then available, probably 1983 data. You are absolutely right. There are areas where we appear to be losing ground. The report addressed cancer, heart disease, stroke, complications of diabetes, violence, and infant mortality.

I think 1991 is an appropriate time to issue a report card to the nation, an official report card as to what has been happening in a six-year period since that first report was provided, to go back and look at the data available to the committee then and look at what is available now, then issue a report card and use it as a milestone to confirm exactly where we are.

There is another purpose to do this in 1991. We are beginning the Year 2000 Objectives for the Nation. We will need a good baseline of where we are with regard to certain parameters of health, to begin measuring from where we are going and where we want to be by the end of this century.

I think it is time to take another look. If we have not made progress, we should declare that we have not, and then look again at our plans. Where we have made progress, let's say something is working and do more of that.

Mr. STOKES. I can appreciate that explanation, Dr. Mason, because it does make sense to see whether or not the nation has responded to that report.

What worried me was that we were going to do another study. That problem has been studied more than any other one in the

nation. That task force was one of the finest task forces ever appointed in this nation to undertake this type of study.

No one has assailed the findings. Indeed has been accepted in every quarter of the nation. We just didn't want another study. Dr. MASON. I think the data is there. It is just pulling it together and issuing a report card.

HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Mr. STOKES. Last year the committee expressed its concern over the low level of participation of minority institutions in the training and research programs of the Public Health Service. We directed OASH to develop a plan to increase minority participation in those programs using the Office of Minority Health in this effort. What progress has been made in this regard?

Dr. MASON. I think we are making a lot of progress. This is unfinished business obviously. The PHS provided in 1989 nearly $57,000,000 in direct funding to historically black colleges and universities.

As a result of the direction that we have received from this Appropriations Committee, we have held a number of conferences and workshops to involve minority scientists and research advantages, stimulate interest in research and research training.

We have supported activities at historically black colleges and universities to develop curriculum and convene workshops. We will be doing similar things with institutions that have large numbers of Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Island students. I think we are beginning to make some substantial progress and we will continue to do that. This is the kind of thing that we need to put energy in and do something about.

I can tell you we have a Secretary who believes in this. He reminds us every other day if not every day. I think we are going to make significant progress in the Public Health Service in carrying out that mandate.

Mr. STOKES. Mr. Chairman, I have a number of questions to submit for the record.

Mr. NATCHER. Fine, Mr. Stokes.

AIDS DRUGS

Now, Dr. Mason, there have been a number of new developments affecting the AIDS epidemic and treatment for victims of AIDS. Tell us what changes you see in this area over the next three or four years.

Dr. MASON. First of all, I think in the past year we have learned that because of the investment that has been made in biomedical research that effective therapies are coming out of the pipe line. That is a direct result of funding by medical research. We have a number of drugs now licensed and available such as aerosolized Pentamidine and AZT. I think the most significant finding is that both of these drugs cannot only be given to people who are symptomatic; but, by identifying people who have been infected with the HIV virus and then when their immune system begins to deteriorate, we can count the so-called T-cells. These cells ward off opportunistic and other infections. By counting the T-cells in these indi