Today, the Ripon Advance, a Washington DC-based public policy news firm, featured an article about the House introduction of H.R.5182, The Promoting Life-Saving New Therapies for Neonates Act. The news firm writes, "H.R.5182, introduced by [Rep. Billy Long R-MO] and U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), would promote innovative neonatal drug therapies that improve outcomes for at-risk infants." The article goes on to highlight the fact that families with children who are born prematurely or sick simply do not have enough options to save their newborns and explains that the bill aims to make life-saving treatments for at-risk newborns more widely available. 

A number of published studies now show, as reported by Science Daily, that nearly one in four babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) receive acid suppressing medication, despite the fact that the drugs have not been approved for newborns. These drugs have proven to be dangerous for newborns as several of these studies show that the use of acid suppression medications in hospitalized high-risk babies is often associated with infection, necrotizing enterocolitis and increased risk of death. Therefore, Science Daily stresses the importance of the research community in studying the effectiveness and safety of these drugs for newborns.