Washington, D.C. — Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, yesterday asked leaders within the U.S. Olympics community about their ability to protect athletes from sexual abuse during an Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing. In case you missed it, watch the full clip.

Key Remarks:

“As someone with a medical background, one of the things that has just been very, very difficult for me is how a medical professional has caused all of this damage…This individual, not licensed in Texas, was providing services, care, whatever he did, at the Karolyi Ranch in Texas – but not licensed by the state of Texas. How do you go about ensuring that physicians that are taking care of your athletes are compliant with licensing obligations?" 

…

“To point out the obvious here, you had an unlicensed physician taking care of people. I don’t know if the parents of these children were apprised of the fact: there’s a physician who’s not licensed in the state of the Texas that’s going to be participating in the training program. Wrong on so many levels. And now, unfortunately we see the consequences of that.”

…

“We can think we’ve got it right, and then it turns out we didn’t get it right. Years later you have to continue to deal with the problems from not getting it right. It is important that we be right on this.”  

For further details on this hearing, please see more from the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.