Murtha: House of Representatives Funds Indiana County Defense Programs

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman John P. Murtha, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, announced today that the House of Representatives voted 370-58 to pass the annual $487.7 billion Defense Appropriations bill.

Included within the bill is funding for local defense programs.

Indiana County:

• Large numbers of wounded service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are amputees. The bill includes $1,600,000 for Ardiem Medical, Inc. to research and develop advanced prosthetic solutions for military members suffering traumatic limb loss. Ardiem’s goal is to produce advanced prosthetic technologies that eventually allow amputees to simply visualize moving their prosthetics and those brain signals will operate an electrically driven prosthetic arm, at a much higher lever of function than is currently available. In addition, that same system would include micro-transducers imbedded in the prosthetic limbs to give touch-like sensory feedback that is currently unavailable in any prosthetic.