D.C.’s diseased culture
It was shameful when Congress, locked in wildly irresponsible partisanship, adjourned without approving funding to fight the Zika virus. That was almost four weeks ago, when the illness, primarily spread by mosquitos, was nearing epidemic proportions in Puerto Rico. The U.S. has experienced more than 1,600 cases, all transmitted from person to person — until now.
On Friday, Florida health officials said that mosquitos had transmitted Zika to four people in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, marking the first known mosquito transmissions on the American mainland.
Perhaps these infections will spark a greater urgency in Congress than, shamefully, Puerto Rican infections did.
Perhaps congressional Republicans will look at Florida — a prized swing state in the presidential election — and swing into political damage control.
After all, they cut President Obama’s requested $1.9 billion in Zika funding to $1.1 billion and then sparked a confrontation with Democrats over an extraneous provision aimed at anti-abortion voters.
They tagged the money with a provision to exclude Planned Parenthood health clinics from eligibility because the organization is a major abortion provider.
The Zika virus often causes a relatively minor illness that entails up to a week of fever, rash and joint pain.
But the consequences can be devastating for pregnant women and their babies, because Zika markedly increases the risk of miscarriages and neurological birth defects, including microencephaly, a condition in which children have unusually small heads and, likely, small brains.
Transmission by mosquitos suggests an impending health disaster starting in Florida.
As Dr. Edward McCabe, chief medical officer of the March of Dimes, warned CNN:
“It’s only a matter of time before babies are born with microcephaly, a severe brain defect, due to local transmission of Zika in the continental U.S. Our nation must accelerate education and prevention efforts to save babies from this terrible virus.”
When, Congress? When?