WASHINGTON (AP) – As the Zika virus escalates into a public health crisis, members of Congress remain entrenched politically, with Republicans and Democrats pointing fingers over the failure to act as the number of mosquito-transmitted cases in the U.S. grows.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell warned lawmakers on Wednesday that her budget for fighting Zika is running out quickly. Without more money fast, she said, the “nation’s ability to effectively respond to Zika will be impaired.”
Yet lawmakers left Washington in mid-July for a seven-week recess without approving any of the $1.9 billion President Barack Obama requested in February to develop a vaccine and control the mosquitoes that carry the virus.
Abortion politics played a key role in the gridlock over the anti-Zika bill. Republicans angered Democrats by adding a provision to a $1.1 billion take-it-or-leave-it measure that would have blocked Planned Parenthood clinics in Puerto Rico from receiving money.
In a USA Today op-ed on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan didn’t mention the Planned Parenthood provision in blaming Democrats for blocking the legislation. Their obstruction, according to Ryan, is “a blatant ploy in an election year.”