[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7510-7511]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       ZIKA SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last week, the Senate approved a 
compromise deal negotiated by Senators Blunt, Murray, and others to 
provide $1.1 billion in emergency supplemental Zika funding.
  The White House, Dr. Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control, CDC, 
and Dr. Collins of the National Institute of Health, NIH, told us they 
needed $1.9 billion to fight this public health crisis, but the 
Republican caucus disagreed with these infectious disease experts.
  I am not sure why Republicans do not believe the world's best 
scientists and health officials when they articulate a clear, 
comprehensive plan to stop Zika. Perhaps they do not appreciate the 
severity of this public health threat?
  When we were faced with cases of Ebola within the United States, we 
reacted swiftly and decisively. We funded 87 percent, $5.4 billion, of 
the administration's request in a total of just 38 days.
  Well, now the same number of people in the U.S. and U.S. territories 
have died from Ebola, as have from Zika--one.
  Yet more than 91 days past the date of the formal Zika request, we 
are debating between just 33 percent, as the House approved, and 58 
percent of this request? I fear my Republican colleagues are 
underestimating the threat from the Zika virus on our Nation's pregnant 
women.
  We know that Zika causes microcephaly, a devastating and tragic birth 
defect that causes babies to be born with serious neurological 
complications.
  And it seems that every day we are learning something worse. Just 
yesterday, a CDC and Harvard University study found that pregnant women 
who are infected with Zika in their first trimester face up to a 13 
percent chance

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of their baby being born with microcephaly.
  We also know that the CDC is currently monitoring nearly 300 pregnant 
women in the United States who have the Zika virus.
  The CDC estimates that the lifetime costs for a baby born with this 
tragic disease is between $1 million to $10 million, not to mention the 
considerable emotional toll of this disease on families.
  Sadly, it doesn't take many cases of microcephaly to begin costing us 
more financially than the paltry amount House Republicans are 
committing to fight Zika.
  But Zika doesn't just cause microcephaly. It is also linked to other 
neurological diseases that aggressively destroy brain tissue. It is 
also linked to Guillain-Bare syndrome, an autoimmune disorder than can 
cause paralysis and death.
  What about the impact of maternal stress on a baby? I cannot imagine 
the anxiety that pregnant women, especially those in the southern part 
of this country and in Puerto Rico, must feel right now. Well, through 
genetics and neuroscience, we know for a fact that a mother's stress 
during pregnancy can shape her child's gene expression, leading to poor 
birth outcomes and psychological and physical disorders.
  If you call yourself pro-life, why would you not want to do 
everything you can to protect these babies from being subjected to 
elevated risk for serious birth defects?
  This is a train we have seen coming for miles and miles, and 
Republicans are refusing to step out of the way.
  It is bad enough that House and Senate Republicans are refusing to 
provide the funding our health experts say is necessary to fight this 
disease, but now House Republicans are insisting on cutting Ebola 
funding to do it.
  Last week, the House passed a partisan bill that would have provided 
a mere $622 million to fight Zika. That is a third of what the experts 
say they need, and they offset the costs by raiding Ebola money.
  House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers called it ``excess funding 
left over from the Ebola outbreak.'' That couldn't be further from the 
truth.
  I recently spoke with the CDC Director Tom Frieden who told me some 
troubling news. Last month, there was another cluster of Ebola cases in 
West Africa, about a dozen new cases. What they have now found is that 
the Ebola virus can stay in a man's system for up to 1 year, allowing 
it to be spread to others.
  Ebola may not be front page news in the United States right now, but 
that is largely because our CDC disease detectives are on the ground in 
West Africa, nearly 100 of them, fighting to contain its spread.
  If we keep stealing the funding that enables them to do their job, 
Ebola could soon again be front page news.
  Since Republicans have been dragging their feet on Zika funding, the 
White House was forced, as a last ditch, stop-gap requirement, to 
transfer $510 million away from the Ebola response to fund the 
immediate response needs for Zika.
  As the White House's Ebola czar, Ron Klain, said last week, ``we are 
taking a fire hydrant out of the ground in one place and moving it 
someplace else to fight a different fire.''
  This Ebola money that was moved was the CDC's funds for the next 2 
fiscal years, funds that are to be used to build a frontline defense 
for our own country. It invests in the public health capacity of 
partner nations, so we aren't waiting for local outbreaks to hit our 
shores as global epidemics.
  These ``leftover'' funds are being used to develop and test vaccine 
candidates for Ebola, and late-stage clinical trials are moving 
forward, but they need those funds to continue validating these 
vaccines.
  Now House Republicans want to drain these Ebola funds again.
  We already know what happens when we have to take money from one 
place in the public health budget and move it elsewhere. State and 
local health departments lost $44 million in CDC preparedness grants 
earlier this year because of a reprogramming of funds that were moved 
to high-risk Zika States. Illinois lost $2 million in total. A recent 
survey of State health departments said that this $44 million cut will 
result in staffing reductions and could hamper Zika preparations by 
forcing a reduction in laboratory services and epidemiological 
activities. So to be clear, States at lower risk for Zika, like 
Illinois, lost money to States at higher risk like Mississippi, Texas, 
and Florida. And this cut will mean that Illinois and other States that 
lost money are now less prepared for Zika.
  Public health preparedness is not done with a wave of a magic wand. 
It requires steady investments in people, lab testing, and epidemiology 
and dedicated research and clinical trials.
  We did not require our Ebola, H1N1, or avian influenza supplementals 
to be offset, and we certainly should not begin down that dangerous 
path now.
  As with our response to Ebola here in the U.S., proven public health 
protocols will work against Zika, but we need to listen to the experts 
and fund the needed response.
  That means we cannot wait any longer to pass an emergency Zika 
funding supplemental.
  Some Republicans have said this money can wait until October 1 when 
our new fiscal year starts. Do you think mosquitos know when the new 
fiscal year begins and will wait to buzz and bite until then?
  This weekend is Memorial Day weekend. I don't know about you, but in 
my hometown and across Illinois that means people will be outside and 
having barbecues. Then comes the Fourth of July and, soon after, Labor 
Day weekend.
  We do not have time to wait around. We need to approve the Senate's 
Zika supplemental as a down payment, and we need to send it to the 
President's desk this week.
  Over 1,380 people across 44 States, Washington DC, and 3 U.S. 
territories, including over 279 pregnant women, have contracted Zika.
  To my Republican colleagues, I would say: stop playing games, support 
our States and Federal health officials, approve the money, and send it 
to the President's desk. We cannot wait any longer. Pregnant women 
cannot wait any longer.

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