[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 8155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               ZIKA VIRUS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I just left a meeting, a stunningly 
important meeting where every one of the guests were prominent, but the 
two I want to refer to briefly are Dr. Frieden, head of the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Fauci, head of one of the 
health institutes at the National Institutes of Health, Infectious 
Diseases, among other things. What they told us was very frightening. 
As we speak, there are three confirmed cases of babies born in the 
United States with the Zika virus. Of course, they are all very sick. 
The life expectancy is not very long.
  They said in unison how vitally important it is and has been for 
months to get them some money so they can do the research needed to 
stop the spread of this virus. They have borrowed money from malaria 
research, TB research--all terribly difficult problems we are having in 
the world and the United States--to take care of the immediate funding 
for research on Zika. They have taken huge amounts of money--more than 
half a billion dollars--out of the Ebola fund, which is still a very 
serious problem. There are active cases as we speak.
  This is not an effort we can just walk away from. This money has been 
needed for a long time, and it is sad that the Presidential request of 
$1.9 billion has been opposed.
  The senior Senator from Florida was at the meeting today talking 
about how every day there are new cases in Florida. Yesterday there 
were five new ones. We needed to do something on that yesterday, not 
wait until the fall, as has been suggested by my Republican colleagues.

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