nih has been working on the obesity problem. we have a trans-nih task force.has recently embattled a trans-hhs task force that we have a significant role in as well. there's a lot that goes into this in terms of health behaviors again in terms of how to figure how to alter environment in terms of the availability of soft drinks and unhealthy foods at schools. and just in terms of public education, getting things like calorie counts put on menus. all of these things could help, but none of them is a perfect solution. we do also work on whether there are ways in terms of pharmacology to be able to assist in the dealing with obesity, although we would much rather i think a people arrive at healthy weight without the need for the. and are so going to be in cities where that doesn't work and there's a lot of effort being made to understand what are the molecular pathways involved in appetite control, and arthur safe ways to interfere with that that might assist people who are struggling with obesity that is not yielded to other things. nih has a program called week

harkin primogenitor cochrane, senator specter, and others on the subcommittee for their support for nih, and it's critical work in discovering the cures of the future. this budget will help get your to american families faster. these are just a few areas in which our budget will employ new resources and new approaches to improve the lives of american families. i look forward to discussing some of the other priorities with you in a few minutes. first i want to clarify one point. the budget is intended to be a complement and not a substitute for health insurance reform. the only way to increase health security and stability, bring down health-care costs, and give americans better insurance choices is to pass comprehensive health insurance reform. combined with the reform effort, the budget is a major step toward building a stronger healthier america. even then, we will need your help improving the health, safety, and well-being of the american people. but the goal we can only achieve by working together. no one has a more important goal and congress. i appreciate the opportunity to be wit

why is nih the best? this is what moves this nation. you want to think like a democrat, like a republican, instead of solving the problems of the world. [unintelligible] this is what causes the problem. guest: i agree -- i think -- in part, but i do not really understand the rest of what he was saying. you talk about competition. that makes us the best. for example, in the olympics, hollywood. in other aspects of the economy, competition brings out the best of us. i think what he was saying with the rest of his comments is we should have a single payer system. i am not convinced that single payer systems serve the people particularly well. you can look at outcomes where we do dramatically better than other countries. i think americans want more control of their life. that has been the culture of the history of this nation. i want to give the power back to the individuals and not to the government. host: here is a quitter message that i want to show. -- twitter message that i want to show. it makes me wonder about the broarepublican part

one interesting study out of nih has been looking very specifically at the impact of having this conflictd then coming up with a very practical interventions on how you might help a manager get employees some flexibility, and then measuring the health impact of that. those are extremely important when you think about the spillover effect of flexibility. i know we have republicans and democrats and independents on the line and i am sure we had a huge diversity of opinion on how to run these companies, but no matter what, i would say that flexibility is a help, not a hurt. whether you are a big corporation, a small corporation, whether the government should be involved or not, flexibility is necessary to be most efficient as we move forward with business. host: what is going on, if anything, in other countries that you and others who are working on your issue are learning from? who are you learning from? guest: we spend a lot of time looking at what other countries are doing. one country spent the most time getting into is australia. australia in many different ways is similar to the united

then new treatment options began to emerge, and i went to work at nih to be part of that process of trying to develop new therapies and trying to get them to people in needed them. you know, the opportunity that we have right now in terms of advances in science combined with their growing public health need for both ran and neglected diseases i think demands that we take action and that we'd be innovative, if not transformative and how we approach it. i am eager to work with you. i think that the program that you have already helped to establish within the fda but through passed legislation has already gas and us on track in terms of beginning to really in a focused way look at new regulatory pathways. how do we leverage advances in science and technology to make our regulatory oversight as efficient and effective as possible and how do we think creatively building on activities already underway such as the orphan drug program to look at various incentives that exist or could be developed to try to tell my you know, really catalyze activities in areas where there are limited markets. it is

we have the cdc and nih doing studies to find out why we have this obesity epidemic and how to combatt would be something i think we could look into. >> that would be very interesting. i have noticed that some activities that used to be school activities, for example swimming, have become club activities. the cost is way up. i think it decreases access to the children and cannot help but have a negative effect. i wonder how much an impact, so it would be wonderful to study that. thank you for your presentation and your focus on this. it is a very important issue, as you have pointed out in your presentation, not just for our children. childhood obesity becomes adult obesity, adult diabetes, and a huge health-care issue. in the course of this health- care debate over the last year, we too often have noticed we have a sick care system rather than a health care system. tackling childhood obesity would be part of a much stronger health-care system. thank you. >> dr. benjamin, congratulations on your assumption of this very important job. i think you for your leadership in this area. we lo

. >> are you working with the nih or the national institute of mental health? are they doing any research that has direct application to how we can help our veterans? >> yes, mr. chairman. there are grants coming from the national institutes of health that looked directly at these issues. it is not a large amount of money, but there is money that is devoted to these types of problems. >> thank you for that. >> i would just add up -- we are also reaching beyond just va. we have conducted a mental health symposium with dod this year to synchronize our utilities. as an extension of that, we have also had a co-conference on suicides, the more serious issue we have to deal with. i would offer that va has also set up a suicide hot line that is nationally known. it gets something on the order of 10,000 calls a month. a good many of those calls are people in crisis. we intervene and interrupt what could be a very serious outcome. it is the whole spectrum of mental health that runs to the very serious cases. >> secretary shinseki, let me ask about the scholarship progra