I know conservatives find this stuff boring compared to trans-genders being able to use public bathrooms or Bill Clinton’s penis, but
[quote]Dr. Tom Frieden has dealt with a number of epidemics during his seven-year tenure as director of the Centers for Disease Control. But the rapidly spreading Zika virus, the terrifying birth defects it causes and Congress’ inexplicable foot-dragging on funding anti-Zika efforts has him feeling downright desperate.
“Imagine that you’re standing by and you see someone drowning, and you have the ability to stop them from drowning, but you can’t,” Frieden told a packed room of reporters and potential donors at the National Press Club on Thursday. “Now multiply that by 1,000 or 100,000. That’s what it feels like to know how to change the course of an epidemic and not be able to do it.”
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Zika, a mosquito-borne virus that can cause babies to be born with unusually small and deformed heads, is rapidly spreading through South and Central America and has already infected at least 1,500 people in the United States. Frieden said the need to stop Zika in its tracks in the U.S. is more urgent than ever right now, as the weather grows hotter and more mosquito-friendly. But the challenges of combatting Zika are enormous and unusual.
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But nearly four months after the CDC first asked for $1.9 billion in funding to deal with the epidemic, Congress just failed to pass a bill to give health officials the money they need and then left for a 10-day recess.
Frieden said his “jaw dropped” when he realized how long it would take Congress to move on the issue. “Three months in an epidemic is an eternity,” he said.
The cost for treating just one baby with microcephaly, the birth defect caused by Zika, is estimated to be about $10 million. More than 300 pregnant women in the U.S. and its territories are confirmed to have Zika.
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“Memorial Day weekend heralds the start of mosquito season,” he said. “We have a narrow window of opportunity to scale up Zika prevention measures, and that window is closing.”[/quote]
First trying to gut safety regulations that ensure drivers of18-wheelers get adequate sleep, and now making sure their pals in the pesticide industry get to poisin the water- supply. What are a few hundred or thousand microcephalic babies compared to campaign contributions?
[quote]But House Democrats and environmental organizations are crying foul, arguing that the bill uses the threat of Zika as a cover for rolling back crucial EPA regulations that protect bodies of water from pesticides.
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If the bill becomes law, users can discharge pesticides into bodies of water without having to first apply to a permit with the EPA, and users won’t have to tell the EPA if their pesticides end up in bodies of water
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Originally named the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act when it was introduced in 2011, the bill sought to ease permitting requirements for pesticide producers, requiring users to apply only the more general permit under FIFRA. That bill passed the House, but failed in the Senate. But even before the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act failed, lawmakers had been trying to use issues like pest management to push through a bill reducing permitting requirements for pesticide users.
"When we were having West Nile, they called it a West Nile bill. Then, when we were having a bad fire season, they called it a Fire Suppression Act,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), said on the floor, noting that Tuesday was the fifth time the House had seen a bill such as this.[/quote]
thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/0 … water-act/