RELEASE: Mullin Champions Bipartisan Give Kids a Chance Act, Condemns “The Grinch” Bernie Sanders for Blocking the Bill

Washington, D.C. - Last night,U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) went to the floor to advocate for his popular bipartisan bill, the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, which will improve outcomes for children with cancer by advancing (or promoting) critical research and ensuring they have access to essential treatments. After the Senator requested unanimous consent from the U.S. Senate to pass the legislation, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders objected, which sparked fiery remarks from Senator Mullin on the Senate floor.

Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the House version of Senator Mullin's legislation by voice vote with unanimous support.

Here's what the co-leads of the bill, U.S. Senators Markwayne Mullin and Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet have said about the bill:

"Every child deserves the opportunity to live a long and happy life," said Sen. Mullin. "Sadly, while nearly 3 out of 4 rare diseases originate in childhood, most have no FDA-approved treatment for kids. The Give Kids a Chance Act builds off current programs to streamline drug development and accelerate research for pediatric cancer. We named this bill after Mikaela Naylon, a 16-year-old who, even as she battled cancer, advocated for other children with cancer until the very end. We owe it to kids like Mikaela to give families the ability to access combination drugs or targeted medicines to maximize their treatment options. Our kids deserve a fighting chance and that is exactly what this bill gives them."

"Children with cancer deserve access to the most advanced medicines possible, and we must ensure our medical professionals have every tool at their disposal to treat them," said Sen. Bennet. "Our bill will help child cancer patients access lifesaving trials and therapies to battle this disease. I will work across the aisle to get this done and keep fighting to end children's cancer."

On Bernie Sanders' anticipated objection to the bill:

MULLIN: "Why wouldn't you want to allow kids, our kids, an opportunity to simply have the same opportunity as adults do with cancer?… It's hard to explain why we wouldn't want to do that, but yet, I understand that [the] senator from Vermont intends to object to the Senate doing this, and I think it's wrong. I think it's dead wrong to think that someone is willing to hold hostage a child who's fighting for their life that simply wants to have an opportunity to try an experimental drug that may extend their life one week, one day, or may even cure it, and you're willing to take that away from the family because you have ever priorities, because you want to hold it hostage, so you can try to do something with community health care centers. I support community health care centers. I want them. They're important to rural Oklahoma, but there's a time and place for everything. And to hold this bill hostage because of it is not right.

You're stealing a family an opportunity to spend maybe an extra minute or an extra day, or maybe a lifetime with a loved one. I don't know how you argue against it. I don't know how you can possibly stand up there with a straight face and say, it's just politics. This isn't just politics we're playing with people's lives. So, this is more than just politics, but I will tell you that if this is objected to, and we can't find a path forward here today, I can promise you I will not stop fighting…it won't happen. We're going to rinse and repeat and continue to go down this path until we give the families with these rare diseases an opportunity to live, because that's what this is about."

Comparing Bernie Sanders to the Grinch at Christmas, after he blocked Mullin's bill:

MULLIN: "I'm talking about giving kids a chance…it has nothing to do with politics…You know, this time of the year, at Christmas, we talk about Grinches all the time, right? They go in and they steal the kids' gifts, but at the end of the show, their hearts grow bigger, and they give the gift back, and they allow kids to be excited about Christmas morning.

What's happened right here in front of us: The Grinch is stealing kids' lives, and they're stealing hope from the families, hopes from the families that might have an opportunity just to try-for a political agenda. And I hope to God that every single family that's going through this will hold the Senator for Vermont accountable, and the state of Vermont will hold him accountable too, because he's playing with kids' lives. He's literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement, and it is ridiculous. It is therefore I object."

Full text of the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act can be found here.

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