DeLauro Speaks on House Floor, Calls on Congress to Fully Fund the Administration’s Request on the Zika Virus
WASHINGTON, DC (May 26, 2016) — Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) today spoke on the House floor regarding the urgent need for Congress to pass the Administration’s $1.9 billion request to respond to the Zika virus. DeLauro noted that one third of that request, which is what House Republicans have proposed, is not adequate.
Click here to watch the full remarks.
Here are the remarks, as delivered:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just will say—my colleague Mr. Sessions just said that the NIH had $600 million in unused Ebola money. That really is false. The NIH has used all of its Ebola funds that Congress allocated. The gentleman from Texas’ statement is not factual.
The Zika virus is a public health emergency. It is a crisis and we must treat it as such. As of last week, there were almost 1,400 confirmed cases of Zika in the United States and its territories—nearly 300 of them are pregnant women, and one person has died.
When this Congress—when we—appropriate money for defense spending or wars, Republicans often say: ‘Listen to the generals in the field. They are the ones who know best.’ Well, we are in the midst of a war against the Zika virus, and we should be listening to the generals and the experts in the field. And who are they? They are at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they are at the National Institutes of Health, and they are the scientists in our country. We need to give them the resources that they need and they have told us they need $1.9 billion. We should do the right thing; we should fund their request. One third of that request—which is what the House Republicans have proposed—is not adequate.
Typically, microcephaly occurs in .02 percent to .12 percent of all U.S. births. But The Washington Post reported yesterday that among Zika-infected pregnant women, that risk is as high as 13 percent. This summer, every woman who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant will be afraid—afraid to go out on the patio, afraid to take your kids to the Little League, afraid to go to a barbecue. It is our duty here to do everything that we can to ease those fears—to stop this disease from spreading any further.
We must not put American women in a predicament of choosing whether or not they should get pregnant—or if they are already pregnant, wondering whether or not their baby is going to be okay.
Ron Klain, the Ebola Czar, wrote in The Washington Post: “It is not a question of whether babies will be born in the United States with Zika-related microcephaly—it is a question of when and how many. For years to come, these children will be a visible, human reminder of the cost of absurd wrangling in Washington, of preventable suffering, of a failure of our political system to respond to the threat that infectious diseases pose.”
According to the CDC, pregnant women are already facing unacceptably long delays in learning Zika results. CDC Director Tom Freiden has said the experts estimate a single child with birth defects can usually cost $10 million dollars to care for—or more. That says nothing about the life of that child with microcephaly—they cannot eat, they cannot speak, they cannot walk.
You know I do not often quote Senator Marco Rubio, but last week he said: “It is a mistake for Congress to try to deal with Zika on the cheap…If we don’t spend more than that on the front end, I think we’re going to spend a lot more later…because the problem is not going to go away.” We could not agree more.
We have already stolen $44 million from our states to deal with this crisis. And the Republican bill does not reimburse our states for the money that they need for dealing with emergencies such as this.
We should defeat this previous question. We should consider a Lowey-DeLauro-Wasserman Schultz Amendment. And we should fully fund the President’s request of $1.9 million. It is responsible, but it is the moral thing to do.
Months from now, when the results of our inaction become apparent, we will ask ourselves, “Why did we delay? Why did we wait?” We must take appropriate action now. We must reject this previous question. We must do what is the morally right thing for the people of this country who put their faith and trust in us to come and represent their best interest and their public health. And I yield back.
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