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Nearly 200 labs around the world have received live anthrax, according to Defense Department testimony before Congress on Tuesday.

The Pentagon announced last week that 86 labs in 20 states, the District of Columbia and seven foreign countries received live anthrax from Dugway Proving Grounds, a military lab in Utah failed to kill the samples before shipment. A private lab in Maryland discovered earlier this year that its sample that was supposed to be inactive was actually live, sparking an investigation that found more than half of all samples from Dugway contained live spores.

On a Thursday evening in early July, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton came to the well of the House floor with a poster-board photograph of himself with two smiling blonde girls.

"This is Brook and Brielle. I'm in the middle, so don't look at me," he said. "These two little girls are from my district in Michigan. Our 21st Century Cures effort seeks to capture just a sliver of the hope and optimism that Brook and Brielle exude despite incredible odds."

1972

The U.S. Forest Service completes a 5-year Roadless Area Review and Evaluation process (RARE I), which found that all the USFS lands within Browns Canyon and surrounding areas, tallying tens of thousands of acres, are suitable to be designated as wilderness.

1973

The Bureau of Land Management recommends 11,000 acres in Browns Canyon area as a "primitive" area.

1976

BUENA VISTA — Like a whitewater rafting trip down the Arkansas River, the dedication ceremony Saturday for Browns Canyon National Monument hit a few rough patches along the way.

The outdoor celebration had to be moved indoors, thanks to an unexpected storm. Two of the monument's most active supporters — former Sen. Mark Udall and former Rep. Joel Hefley — were unable to make it, Udall due to a climbing injury, Hefley because of a death in the family.

The excitement was palpable — as it is almost every summer Saturday along the upper Arkansas River — as the who's-who list of federal, state and area dignitaries arrived for the formal dedication ceremony of Browns Canyon National Monument. But nowhere was it more evident than on the bow of Gov. John Hickenlooper's whitewater raft.

There, the governor's son, Teddy, sat with tether in hand and an ear-to-ear smile across his face as he took in the whitewater action and the surreal scenery of Colorado's newest national monument.

Advances in biomedical and pharmaceutical research continue to occur at a dizzying pace. Yet the process of moving these discoveries out of the lab and into the real world where they can benefit people is frustratingly slow.

That could change very soon. In an encouraging show of bipartisanship, the House recently passed legislation — the 21st Century Cures Act (H.R. 6) — designed to speed the process from scientific discovery to health treatments and cures for people who need them.