Senate Democrats Head to Recess After Blocking Anti-Zika Funding

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Dr. Susan Berry

Senate Democrats are leaving Washington, D.C. for their summer recess after blocking a GOP $1.1 billion measure that would have funded efforts to fight the Zika virus.

Democrats refused to support the measure primarily because abortion business Planned Parenthood wouldn’t get additional taxpayer funding out of the deal. In addition, they wouldn’t consider a short-term waiver from a redundant EPA regulation that would have allowed the spraying of FDA approved pesticides to eradicate many of the mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus.

Very little is actually known about the Zika virus and its effects on unborn babies, yet Planned Parenthood has waged a massive birth control and abortion campaign – particularly in Latin American countries where abortion is currently illegal – and insisted that its abortion business should take the lead in the effort.

“You know we’re really at the beginning of understanding Zika in pregnancy,” Rear Adm. Anne Schuchat, M.D., principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emphasized in her testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. She continued:

We don’t know, if a woman has laboratory-confirmed Zika in pregnancy, exactly what that means for her and her baby. You know with something like a Down Syndrome test or some of the genetic testing that’s done, there’s a lot of science behind the counseling that goes on with the family about what that means for the pregnancy, but with Zika we really don’t know.

According to the CDC, Zika is “not currently being spread by mosquitoes in the continental United States. The mosquitoes that can carry Zika are found in some areas of the United States.”

World reports that Dr. Donna Harrison, executive director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said women who appear to be at risk to contract the Zika virus are mainly pregnant women who have never had the infection before and are in their first trimester of pregnancy. Among this small pool of women, only one in 100 will deliver a baby with microcephaly, the birth defect that has been linked to the Zika virus.

Yet, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s executive vice President Dawn Laguens insisted, “We are the front line of defense when it comes to battling Zika.”

Laguens said it was “shameful” for Republicans “to undermine the ability of family planning providers like Planned Parenthood to do what we do best in the midst of this rapidly spreading Zika virus, a public health crisis that directly targets women and children.”

While the Zika virus has been found in semen – and some cases of sexually transmitted Zika have been reported – the CDC recommends use of condoms during sex but with the caveat, “Condoms can reduce the chance of getting Zika from sex. To be effective, condoms must be used correctly from start to finish, every time you have vaginal, anal and oral (mouth-to-penis) sex.”

Ironically, there is little discussion that abstinence should be the method of choice to avoid Zika transmission sexually.

Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons places the concerns about Zika in perspective.

Writing at Heartland Institute about the Zika “scare,” Orient states:

CDC is in high gear, with politically correct advice on Zika. Meanwhile, cases of dengue in Mexico have topped 10,000. Dengue is caused by a related but far more serious virus, carried by the same Aedes aegypti mosquito. And 78,000 people in Africa die every year of another relative, yellow fever. The vector was coming under good control decades ago, but is re-emerging now. Asking “why” should be the main response to Zika.

Instead the advice seems to be: “Don’t travel, don’t have a baby, don’t let a mosquito bite you, stop climate change” – and give the authorities billions of dollars for a crash vaccine development program.

Orient is among the experts who say lifting the ban on DDT would rid the world of the Zika virus and some other mosquito-borne illnesses as well.

“The ban on DDT was basically the decision of one man, William Ruckelshaus [the first head of the EPA], going against a mountain of evidence on safety and enormous health benefits,” Orient told Breitbart News. “It was said that, ‘If they can ban DDT, they can ban anything.’ And that’s how the EPA power grab started. Millions of African babies have died and are still dying of malaria because if it.”

“Substitute pesticides are far more toxic and expensive,” she added. “People are advised to use insect repellents such as DEET — which is absorbed through the skin, and safety in pregnancy is not established.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases explained at a recent news conference that Brazil was able to stop the spread of Zika during the 50s and 60s through the use of DDT.

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