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After recess, Senate’s Zika funding stalemate continues
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After returning from a 7-week recess, the Senate again was unable to compromise on a pair of bills providing Zika response support.
Votes for the two Republican-backed bills — which also contained provisions for the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs — did not reach the required 60-vote threshold Tuesday due to opposition from Senate Democrats, who said the proposed relief included an attack on Planned Parenthood and other partisan agendas.
“Because of Republican inaction, our entire nation is exposed to this scourge,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said before the voting. “We must stop the spread of this disease. We need to learn more. We need to pass a bipartisan funding bill that gives doctors, researchers and public health officials the resources they require to understand and fight the spread of this deadly, deforming virus.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chastised Democrats for their “senseless” and “irresponsible” filibusters and called on his opponents to follow through with their own demands for action.
“It’s hard to explain why — despite their own calls for funding — Senate Democrats decided to block a bill that could help keep pregnant women and babies safer from Zika,” McConnell said before the voting. “Our colleagues across the aisle can point to a series of partisan excuses, but the bottom line is this: There is no good explanation for blocking these public health and national security funding bills.”
Both senators noted the rise of Zika virus cases in the continental United States during the 7-week recess, and the recent discovery of mosquitoes carrying Zika virus in Florida.
The primary appropriations bill would provide public health with $1.1 billion to combat the virus and its vectors, and it was previously approved by the Republican-controlled House. CDC and White House officials announced earlier this year that resources allocated to Ebola prevention and other efforts have been redirected to Zika prevention and stressed the urgent need for additional support.
“We have exhausted our ability to even provide short-term financing to help fight Zika,” HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said in an August letter to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “Our nation’s ability to mount the type of Zika response that the American people deserve sits squarely with Congress.” – by Dave Muoio
Perspective
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Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD
This is part of an ongoing series of disappointments coming out of Washington, D.C. The U.S. Congress cannot organize itself to take care of pregnant women in the major areas where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are widespread — Florida, Louisiana and Texas. Perhaps it is yet another example of what some people (and a recent book) call a “flyover nation.” There is a certain amount of elitism — the problems of the U.S. are those that affect wealthy suburbs of East Coast cities like Bethesda, Maryland; Brookline, Massachusetts; West Chester, Pennsylvania; and Silicon Valley in California — and who cares about the middle? Zika is a disease of the middle — and in the south coast of the U.S. There is an overall lack of compassion and care for pregnant women in that region.
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