Washington, DC--Congressman Eliot Engel recently met with 11-year-old Abbey Umali, the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Goodwill Ambassador, who presented the 11-term Congressman with “commemorative recognition of his tremendous work on behalf of individuals with neuromuscular disease.”

Rep. Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, wrote and championed the MD-Care Reauthorization legislation, which became law in 2008.

Rep. Engel wrote the Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Act (P.L. 110-361) which promoted research at Centers of Excellence for Muscular Dystrophy. Rep. Engel also authored the ALS Registry Act (P.L. 110-373) which established a national registry for the collection and storage of data on those suffering from ALS.

Miss Umali has Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, one of the most common inherited neurological disorders, affecting approximately 1 in 2,500 people in the United States. The disease affects peripheral nerves, which lie outside the brain and spinal cord and supply muscles and sensory organs in the limbs, leading to progressive degeneration of the arms, legs, hands and feet. Rep. Engel has been a leader in pressing the National Institutes of Health to advance research into CMT.