U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Moline, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., spoke Wednesday at UnityPoint Health-Trinity Rock Island about a number of measures designed to attack opioid abuse, which is killing or harming tens of thousands Americans annually.

A package has passed in the U.S. House and another in the Senate, and legislators must now meet to iron out a final compromise between the two packages before the president can consider signing them into law.

If signed into law, the various measures mean about $8 billion in grants for programs fighting drug addiction, Bustos and Durbin said.

That money is not enough, Durbin said. Opioid abuse is a large-enough public health threat that it should be addressed with the same vigor that HIV/AIDs was subjected to in years past.

“It’s that menacing,” he said.

Among the House package’s measures are two that would address issues on which Bustos has focused: withdrawal symptoms in infants whose mothers abuse opioids during their pregnancies, and allowing doctors to care for the addicted via teleconference if needed.

To help the infants, federal research would be developed to address opioid abuse in mothers and the prevention or treatment of withdrawal in the children of addicted women, Bustos said.

“It (withdrawal in babies) is one of the most heartbreaking things to see,” she said.

The second measure Bustos discussed is meant to improve medical service in rural areas or other places where people needing addiction treatment may not have access to the resources they need, she said.

The issues Durbin is focusing on include working to control the amount of opioids being produced in the United States, finding and confiscating fentanyl being shipped by mail and intended for illegal use and improving treatment for children who have suffered trauma.

One of the bills would require the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which regulates opioid production, to consider the supply’s potential contribution to the epidemic, and another is aimed at improving mail screening to catch fentanyl packages intended for illegal use.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid sold both legally and illegally. It can be mixed with heroin to deadly effect.

Improving treatment of childhood traumas like domestic violence and sexual abuse can improve a troubled child’s chances of avoiding crime and drug abuse later in life, Durbin said. Those early traumas often lead to problem behavior late.

Charles Harris, a behavioral health professional with UnityPoint Health-Trinity, said during the conference that the grant money could mean expansion of treatment programs and of training in the use of kits designed to prevent overdoses from becoming fatal.

The staff of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center in Rock Island works with children on a daily basis, said Jerry Jones, executive director of the center. With the law’s support, his staff could be better trained to identify children suffering from the effects of abuse or other trauma and have a better idea of how to deal with it, he said.

Durbin and Bustos said the efforts on the various bills in the packages were bipartisan, and they believe there is enough momentum to get a final package sent to the White House.

Bustos said every House district has problems with opioid abuse.

“There is no region that is untouched,” she said.