Senator Bob Menendez: "Congress Must Go Back to Work to Fight Zika"

NEWARK, N.J. – Zika has come to Miami and Congress needs to come back to Washington to provide the necessary funding to fight back against the threat this insidious disease poses. Zika is a national emergency, and we are a nation that always responds to emergencies.
When tornadoes devastate the Midwest, when wildfires ravage acres and acres on the West Coast, when hurricanes churn in the Gulf and threaten New Orleans and Galveston, and superstorms like Sandy strike the Mid-Atlantic states, America comes together and acts. Now, in the face of a potential Zika crisis in Miami, we need to be at our best and do our best to quickly and decisively respond. Unfortunately, the current leadership in Congress would rather put politics ahead of country.
Five months after the President’s original call for an emergency response to Zika, Miami has become ground zero for the virus in the continental United States, where the first confirmed cases of locally-acquired transmission occurred and is threatening to spread. The CDC has issued travel advisories for those headed to Miami, and is warning that this insidious virus, carried by mosquitoes, could soon reach New Jersey and spread across the country.
Zika is particularly sinister. Healthy adults who contract the virus are largely unaffected and often asymptomatic. Most people wouldn’t even know they have it. But the real threat is to pregnant mothers and their unborn children.
We now have more than 6,408 Americans that have been infected, more than 850 pregnant American women show signs of infection and 13 American children have been born with birth defects caused by the virus.
In May, a woman visiting New Jersey from Honduras gave birth to a baby girl with microcephaly at Hackensack University Medical Center. Microcephaly is a rare condition in which the baby’s born with a significantly smaller head, as a result of its brain not being fully developed, which can lead to blindness, hearing loss, the inability to swallow or move, seizures, intellectual disabilities and developmental delays.
The concern and fear gripping American families is real, and I feel it more personally than most. My daughter lives in Miami and is five months pregnant with my first grandchild. I am deeply concerned for her health, her well-being, and the well-being of my first grandchild. That fear is palpable. It cannot be ignored, not by me, not by any father, not by any grandfather; and it should not be ignored by the Republicans in Congress.
The alarms have been ringing for months. We knew Zika was coming. But instead of being proactive and prepared for what was about to hit our shores, Republican leaders in Congress chose to ignore the warning signs and adjourn Congress without acting.
Democrats fought Republican opposition to pass the president’s request for $1.9 billion to battle Zika. In May, the Senate approved, 89-8, a bipartisan compromise for $1.1 billion, but it was derailed in the House by Republicans who insisted on adding a poison pill amendment to a clean bill that would have prohibited Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics from receiving Zika funds.
It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Republicans to deny health options to women in high-risk areas since Zika is not only spread sexually, but inflicts the most damage to fetuses. Every major health organization, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization, to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has recommended that the best course of action is to increase access to contraception and family planning services to decrease transmission of the virus.
I have called on Senate Majority Leader McConnell and House Speaker Ryan to immediately call Congress back into session, cancel the remainder of the congressional recess and get back to work to help the American public, especially women and families, amidst this crisis.
We can’t afford to wait any longer. With the combination of peak mosquito season, increased summer travel, and a mass exodus from Puerto Rico — where the incidence of Zika is greater — to the mainland to escape the island’s fiscal crisis, we are confronting a perfect storm that will only exacerbate and guarantee the virus’ spread throughout the U.S.
It’s time to get back to Washington and respond without partisanship or political considerations to what is clearly a national emergency. At the end of the day, lives are at stake and we must do all we can to protect every American.
US Senator Bob Menendez