Washington, DC--Congressman Eliot Engel recently attended and co-chaired the Allergy and Asthma Network’s Asthma Awareness Day Capitol Hill. He spoke to the gathered crowd, and received a plaque from the Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics founder and president Nancy Sander.

Rep. Engel played an instrumental role in passing the Asthmatic Schoolchildren’s Treatment & Health Management Act in 2004. This bill gives preference to states that require schools to allow students to self-administer medication to treat asthma. All 50 states now have laws protecting students’ rights to carry and administer their lifesaving medication at school.

Rep. Engel is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health. He and his family have been fighting their own struggle with asthma for years, and his Congressional district has one of the highest incidences of asthma in the United States. Rates of death from asthma in the Bronx are about three times higher than the national average. Hospitalization rates are about five times higher. In some neighborhoods in the Bronx, it is estimated that 20 percent of the children have asthma.