White House Redirects $589M In Funds To Fight Zika Virus (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The White House said on Wednesday it will redirect $589 million in funds to prepare for the Zika virus before the mosquito that carries it begins to emerge in the continental United States, but urged Congress to act quickly on its request for more money. Most of the $589 million will come from $2.7 billion in funds set aside for public health projects aimed at the Ebola virus. White House budget director Shaun Donovan said the use of money previously provided for fighting another health crisis, the Ebola virus, was only a temporary fix for Zika funding. Donovan said some measures to fight Zika would have to be delayed, curtailed or stopped unless the U.S. Congress approves more than $1.8 billion in emergency funds requested by the Obama administration in February. The Zika virus, linked to a growing number of cases of the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil, is spreading rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean and heading north as the weather gets warmer.

Comments

Included Spending

[Anonymous Coward]

Condoms
Community Outreach to South Pacific Islanders residing in Alaska
Various Performance Artists
Remodel of Nancy Pelosi's Mansion.

Re: Included Spending

[gerf]

I doubt it'll go towards purchasing DDT from the few places that still use it, so this is likely for naught.

Alternative solution

[suupaabaka]

Maybe they should just build a big wall.

Re:Alternative solution

[Anonymous Coward]

With fricken laser beams to zap anything that tries to fly over.

Re:Alternative solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked for Madagascar.

Re:Alternative solution

[Anonymous Coward]

And North Korea, we should want to be more like North Korea, ask any republican

Re:Alternative solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked for Madagascar.

Madagascar just needs to close it's one seaport.

Re:Alternative solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It would certainty be a lot cheaper.

Re:Alternative solution

[sociocapitalist]

Maybe they should just build a big wall.

And make the mosquitos pay for it.

Err on the side of caution

[rmdingler]

I think it's a good idea to get ahead of this outbreak instead of waiting until the tipping point was near for widespread transmission.

Take not just the money from Ebola, take the lesson: don't let something this virulent get away from us.

As of March 30, 2016 (5 am EST) Zika virus disease and Zika virus congenital infection are nationally notifiable conditions. This update from the CDC Arboviral Disease Branch includes provisional data reported to ArboNET for January 1, 2015 – March 30, 2016. US States Travel-associated Zika virus disease cases reported: 312 Locally acquired vector-borne cases reported: 0 Of the 312 cases reported, 27 were pregnant women, 6 were sexually transmitted, and 1 had Guillain-Barré syndrome US Territories Travel-associated cases reported: 3 Locally acquired cases reported: 349 Of the 352 cases reported, 37 were pregnant women and 1 had Guillain-Barré syndrome

Re:Err on the side of caution

[waTeim]

Adding; the species A. aegypti is the mosquito that carries Zika and is present in the United State mainland along the Gulf Coast and also in AZ. There is a ~3 day window after a mosquito bites someone who is infected before someone else can be infected but after that it's for the lifetime of the mosquite (total 15 days). No natively transmitted Zika has been reported in the continental US, but it is expected that 20% of the population of Puerto Rico will be infected by Zika by the end of the year.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[mspohr]

Except Ebola hasn't gone extinct. There are still new cases reported and it could break into an epidemic at any time.
Foolish Republicans won't fund both Zika and Ebola research... it's their crusade against government spending (and the poor).

Re:Err on the side of caution

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we could release clouds of sterilized republican males and they would attempt to mate with republican females, thereby reducing their numbers

Re:Err on the side of caution

[Gravis Zero]

Take not just the money from Ebola, take the lesson: don't let something this virulent get away from us.

except Ebola virus was extremely virulent and deadly whereas the Zika virus is neither of those.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[riverat1]

It's become obvious that Ebola is relatively easy to contain once you get on top of it. It can't be transmitted except by direct contact with someone who's sick with it. Zika on the other hand is carried by mosquitoes and anywhere the type of mosquitoes that can carry it are endemic it will be a threat. That includes much of the southern USA. Ars Technica had a recent story about how Zika may infect nerve cells in any age person. Link.

Re: Err on the side of caution

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when it causes spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and early infant mortality.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[rmdingler]

I think (and hope) a lot of the early stuff linking the disease to microcephaly is premature conjecture.

It's also fairly recently believed to have been spread through sexual contact, after being thought of as primarily a mosquito borne disease.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[techno-vampire]

Zika on the other hand is carried by mosquitoes and anywhere the type of mosquitoes that can carry it are endemic it will be a threat.

Most parts of the USA that have mosquitoes also have measures in place to control and/or eliminate them, some more effective than others. I would hope that those measures would help control this, along with other mosquito born diseases.

Re: Err on the side of caution

[LostMyBeaver]

Fairly irresponsible comment here.

CDC which while being a US agency where politics are sometimes played is generally a reliable source of information on diseases. They have not made any comments to confirm that any of your listed issues are a reality. They also don't deny them. They instead say "We don't know" which I assume means "We don't know yet".

The post you responded to takes one extreme and your response takes another.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing that links the Zika virus to spontaneous abortions, stillbirths or early infant mortality. In the cases where these issues are reported, Zika was a variable that should be investigated for linkage to the events, but a pregnancy has tens of trillions of variables involved over a 9 month period which all relate to those three issues. The presence of Zika in those cases means that there is an additional variable to consider which we can in fact research and hopefully identify as benign.

I'm not trying to be a denier, instead I'm trying to be a voice of reason. Making blanket statements regarding whether a virus does or doesn't cause medical issues is very dangerous and if there is too much of this going around, people may be infected globally with another disease called FUD which is currently mostly contained within the 51 states of the US (continental, Hawaii, Alaska, England). Remember that's a country where pregnant women are so scared of pregnancy to begin with that they attend Lamaze classes to learn how to breath.

The last thing we want is to unjustifiably cause expecting families even greater reasons to panic over child birth. So far as I can tell, about 7 billion living people worldwide were in fact born at some point. Only about 400 million of them were born in a country (the US) where the act of child birthing is treated as if there are 10000 terrorists coming from every angle to attack their unborn child. Probably about 200 million of these people were even born at a time before we went bat shit crazy. That said, America's infant mortality rate is among the worst in the first world.

So, what we do as mature responsible adults is that we respond with things like "Except that until we prove otherwise, there's a possibility and a legitimate concern that Zika can be linked to spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and early infant mortality".

Re:Err on the side of caution

[riverat1]

Take not just the money from Ebola, take the lesson: don't let something this virulent get away from us.

except Ebola virus was extremely virulent and deadly whereas the Zika virus is neither of those.

Ebola is virulent and deadly (isn't that redundant?) but it is only contagious through direct contact. It's easy to control once you're aware of it.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like AIDS has been eradicated by the War on Some Drugs and the repression of sexual education to cater to religious dogma?

Getting "on top of" a virulent and infections disease that spreads easily among caregivers is a nightmare.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[riverat1]

A person can have the HIV virus for years before becoming symptomatic spreading it to other sexual partners. Someone with Ebola gets very sick within a week. Yes, Ebola can spread among caregivers if they're not using the proper protocols but it's easy to contain once you're aware of what it is. The only people who actually contracted it in the USA were the two nurses who were caring for Thomas Eric Duncan and they were caring for him for 2 days before they knew he had the disease. Both nurses recovered from Ebola after proper care. One of them even took a couple of airline flights before she was diagnosed and no one got it from her. It's obvious that Ebola is not that hard to contain once you're aware that it's there. Ebola is near the bottom of my list of things to be worried about.

Re: Err on the side of caution

[Anonymous Coward]

As an "adult" I am glad that you did not resort to playing the "authority" without any basis in reality

In particular, this report from the cdc contains some doozies, Possible Association Between Zika Virus Infection and Microcephaly — Brazil, 2015 may give you some good information to base your ideas on

They identify instances of microcephaly and miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) and cite an increase in cases of microcephaly by >3,000 over normal rates, in just the last half of 2015 in Brazil

It is completely justifiable to track and control this problem before it becomes as common in the US as West Nile virus is today

Re: Err on the side of caution

[Anonymous Coward]

You have never been in South Carolina in the summer...

There is no way to control them due to the hot wet climate, short of burning down every forest and woodland.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's a good idea to get ahead of this outbreak instead of waiting until the tipping point was near for widespread transmission.

Take not just the money from Ebola, take the lesson: don't let something this virulent get away from us.

As of March 30, 2016 (5 am EST)

Zika virus disease and Zika virus congenital infection are nationally notifiable conditions.
This update from the CDC Arboviral Disease Branch includes provisional data reported to ArboNET for January 1, 2015 – March 30, 2016.
US States

Travel-associated Zika virus disease cases reported: 312
Locally acquired vector-borne cases reported: 0
Of the 312 cases reported, 27 were pregnant women, 6 were sexually transmitted, and 1 had Guillain-Barré syndrome
US Territories

Travel-associated cases reported: 3
Locally acquired cases reported: 349
Of the 352 cases reported, 37 were pregnant women and 1 had Guillain-Barré syndrome

And yet 1.4 million people die of preventable TB every year, including 550 deaths in the US, and 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease in the US every year with about 10% going on to suffer from debilitating chronic pain. Yet no funding is coming to study Lyme, no funding to save lives in poor countries rampant with TB, and $568M to fight a disease with 350 cases and only 1 with the detrimental side effect of Guillain-Barre.

This is what happens when the media whips people into a frenzy over outbreak scenarios of diseases like ebola and Zika which by the numbers represent minor health threats.

Re: Err on the side of caution

[Anonymous Coward]

He's also never been to Northern New England.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[tlhIngan]

Most parts of the USA that have mosquitoes also have measures in place to control and/or eliminate them, some more effective than others. I would hope that those measures would help control this, along with other mosquito born diseases.

The key word is "control". Sure the US isn't overrun with mosquitos, but you can't get rid of every single one of them because they breed wherever there's stagnant water.

And there's plenty of mosquito-borne illnesses - west nile is a common one that keeps rebounding every summer through the entire US. Doesn't help that it's carried by birds, too.

Zika requires the mosquito bite an infected human, then bit more humans later on. Given mosquitos are still pests everywhere, well, just like computer security, it only takes one.

Re:Err on the side of caution

[techno-vampire]

The key word is "control".

Yes. Exactly. This is why there are Mosquito Abatement Districts where I live not Elimination Districts.

And they do a very good job, too. Back when I was young, in the '50s, mosquitoes were quite a problem in the San Fernando Valley. If there was the slightest gap in the window screens, you'd wake up with at least four or five new bites every morning until you either patched the screen or at least made sure that window was closed at night. Now, if you get more than two or three bites per year it's unusual. You may not be able to eliminate them, but that's no excuse for not even trying.

Until one of the GOP congress critter family is ..

[WindBourne]

infected, nothing will happen. Seriously, this CONgress is going to fight it just because O pushed it.

Re:Until one of the GOP congress critter family is

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama probably made up this disease anyway, it's not even named after a White Guy.

Re:Gotcha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Science much?

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6503e2.htm

Why should I have to pay?

[rsilvergun]

Why should I have to pay for Zika virus containment when I'm not anywhere that needs it? And if I am shouldn't I pay for my own containment and not everybody elses?

OK, ok, I'm trolling. But I've actually had these conversation with people. It's not usually about anything as scary as viruses. But try getting anyone to agree to national infrastructure spending. Obama almost lost the US Prez election with his "You didn't build it" comment trying to find a way to say the things you do for your fellow citizens benefit you too. Damned if I know a way to communicate that and not just get shouted down. It doesn't help that the other side has billions in dollars and focus groups to figure out how to get their message across (Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc) :(...

Re:Gr8. Let's help more countries outside the USA.

[LostMyBeaver]

Let me start by asking a few things :

1) What the fuck is a "Checknian"? Are you the last person on this planet which can't see a squiggly red line beneath a work or are you using Netscape 4.7 to surf the web?

2) USAians? Benjamin Franklin spend the greatest part of his life publishing a newspaper where he intentionally edited all articles to ensure that the term American referred to the people who would rise up to establish a great nation. The people of all states would stand united under this great name American. He would teach the people of the USA to identify themselves under this great common title. If for 200+ years the word American as it is currently established within the Merriam Webster American English Dictionary has propagated throughout the world to identify a citizen or resident of the United States of America, is it actually necessary to apply the stupidity of suggesting that "American might confuse someone and therefore we should clarify with the far more accurate and socially sensitive term USAian"? Mexicans, Canadians, Brazilians, etc... they all know who they are and they may tease the US about the term American, but the word is here to stay. Quit being a dick.

3) Latino Invaders? Did they establish an army and march in and invade? Latino immigrants is more accurate. First of all, not everyone is actually against them coming to America. In fact, some people welcome them and wish them the best. America was made great by immigrants. Oddly, America's greatness seemed to decline about the time we tried to make it harder for immigrants to come. Consider historically all the great accomplishments of America and you'll find that nearly every single one of them were accomplished by immigrants or first generation Americans. America does not breed greatness, it never has. America attracts greatness. Greatness comes from people giving up absolutely everything a person knows or loves and risking everything to go to a place you're not welcome... all to go somewhere you can become great... and people like you want to shoot these people at the borders.

4) Obama... here's a president which while incompetent (it's a job requirement, see previous 43 presidents) is a pretty good person. He can't go door to door placing his hand on each head and curing all the sick and feeding all the poor. What he has attempted to accomplish over the past 7 years is to tried and make people healthy enough to work and pay taxes. He has tried to allow immigrants to contribute to the system and not only consume jobs, but to create new job markets and strengthen the US economy (no it doesn't happen over night.. it takes time... it may or may not fail). He has tried to establish good relations with as many countries of the world he could. He has started tearing down national borders and boundaries and tried to make America a productive part of Earth as a whole. He has tried to limit the strength of oil nations that controlled whether you could afford to drive to work. He has tried to clean up the mess in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Syria, etc... he failed, but the important thing is, he tried and it doesn't really matter who got stuck with that, there was/is no good answer there. But like Bush (pick one), Clinton, Reagan, etc... he's a good person. He tried, no matter how much people like you hated him to go to work each day and make America and the world as a whole a better place... just like his predecessors. Let's reiterate an earlier statement... quit being a dick.

5) Finally... President Putin.. yes... just like Obama and pretty much all presidents before him, Putin likes his country. Putin has made a career similar to how Obama had which would identify the illnesses of his country and try to correct them. Putin spends money on aiding and assisting their friends and neighbors all the time. This is part of being a leader of a country. Everyone who can chip in chips in.

Let me point out that when Abraham Lincoln died, (minor exaggeration coming) if anyone attended his funeral, it was to piss on his grav

Zika not really causes microcephaly

[Anonymous Coward]

Zika virus has been linked to babies with microcephaly cases in Brazil. But only in Brazil.

The thing is that some of the vaccines the government used were expired.

It was just better and convenient to blame on the Zika virus. But its not really its cause

A partly political Virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Some facts:
Zika has been spreading through Africa for at least 60 years now without serious consequences being observed. The typical clinical course of Zika fever is harmless. A correlation between it and microcephaly has not yet been demonstrated. The reported number of cases (Zika with microcephaly) by the Brazilian researchers who started the discussion is, contrary to the impression created in parts of the media, around 20. Microcephaly is definitely caused by infection with other viruses (e.g., rubella), alcohol abuse, and other factors in effect during pregnancy.

The reaction:
A warning about a possible risk posed by Zika during pregnency makes sense, but only in proportion to other risks. The context-free representation in some media ("OMG, new killer virus cripples masses of Babies") is probably not helpful.

My interpretation:
Zika is used as an argument for releasing genetically modified mosquitoes in Brasil as a counter measure. The risk of this measure could be more unpredictable or greater than the risk of the virus itself. Also, huge amounts of money are about to be moved as seen here. Therefore, I wonder if perhaps other motivations are involved. Moreover, parts of the political class of Brazil are currently grateful for any type of distraction: the government has proven to be corrupt and is about to be replaced by an opposition which is even more corrupt. So it's probably a good thing to keep the public occupied with other things.

Citizen!

[Anonymous Coward]

This website is for entertainment. Do not try to muddle things with facts - they're confusing.
If you simply *must* use facts the Ministry of Dialogue recommends that you shout, use swear words and do personal attacks. It's more entertaining that way and pulls the discussion into harmless directions.

money swindle

[Anonymous Coward]

whenever I see millions of dollars moving around like this I automatically assume someone somewhere is fucking about with Corporate/government funded research dropping shit down on the ground in order to get said Money to move around into the required hands.
I'll get my coat.
And my tin hat

Norton

[Anonymous Coward]

I just use Norton

Norton

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they use Norton?

Re: Big wall

[fullback]

and make the mosquitos pay for it.

Re:Gr8. Let's help more countries outside the USA.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you fell for troll bait, sir.

Re:Until one of the GOP congress critter family is

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see the CDC response to ebola in the US ? huh? There was none. Do they actually need the money ? or is this just another 500 million dollar website? The CDC can and should take the money out the their political action spending and use it to actually research diseases. Really ? O is pushing it to get more money for the cdc to spend on it's phony research into gun violence.

How to kill skeeters

[Anonymous Coward]

Put minnows in standing water. Or soap. Or DDT. Your choice, but I vote for minnows.

Facts smacts

[Dareth]

"You can prove anything even remotely true with facts." Homer Simpson

These days, you can't even get two sides to agree on what the "facts" are. Each side has their own "facts" that support their position.

What will they do

[lmasaya]

Maybe they should wait until all the scientist are in complete agreement regarding the facts on the Zika virus. Some of them say it is something else, like Monsanto products in Brazil. This could hurt the economy and businesses. Oh, wait, that is climate change. Never mind, fund the hello out of this.

One group of cronies gets less money so another

[Anonymous Coward]

so another group of cronies gets enriched.

What, you think that the government works for the people? hahahahha, yeah right.

Re:Until one of the GOP congress critter family is

[WindBourne]

Actually, as somebody that worked at CDC and was on the ground floor of HIV, I can tell you that CDC was all over the place WRT ebola and is no doubt all over this. CDC keeps very quiet, but does a lot more than anybody realizes. Sadly, with HIV, we found out how political issues are with these disease.

Re:Gr8. Let's help more countries outside the USA.

[indi0144]

You pick the wrong angle to point how retarded is the term USasian, Think of IDK, Germany, appropriating of the term "European" ("because we won the war and edit the encyclopedias so why the fuck no") and then actively promoting it in spite of the whole lot of people of Europe who suddenly, are not "European" anymore. The word maybe here to stay but that will not prevent anyone to point how retarded it is, Americo Vespuccio didn't even explored North America. (Do you notice how I refer to Americo by his real name?, Same as we don't name your guy Jorge Washington around here, something something frigging common sense)

I don't actually think You (as a country) have the moral ground to request for a trademark name when people in your country loves to refer to TWO whole subcontinents of people as "Mexicans", damn right intentionally, because we deny ourselves to think that the education can be so poor in there, thats how you are, we kinda love you, but its still something decided more on hubris than on actual common sense and people will point it out whenever someone on a high horse appears.

It should be North Americans if you ask me, I know Canadians would be cool with it.