Administration Not Doing Nearly Enough to Address the Avian Flu Threat, Lantos Says
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Washington, DC - The Bush Administration's efforts to halt the spread of the lethal avian flu overseas, as well as to prevent a possible pandemic in the United States, have been gravely insufficient, Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, said today.
"Our top priority must be to make every effort humanly possible to detect and contain an avian flu outbreak before it even hits the United States," Lantos noted at a committee hearing on the matter. "In that regard, I am singularly unimpressed by the Administration's proposal to spend only 3% of its $7 billion avian flu budget on tackling the virus where it is already emerging -- in markets and small villages across the continent of Asia.
"We should be channeling our funds to reducing the chance that avian flu will mutate into a highly transmittable form by detecting outbreaks when they occur and controlling the spread of outbreaks to avoid a global pandemic," Lantos continued. "Dedicating only $250 million - which is a pitiful 3% of the Administration's proposal - to this critically important task is woefully insufficient. And I recommend that we, at a minimum, double this amount."
He emphasized that it is imperative that the United States strongly support the work of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, both of which are struggling to build up the capacity of local authorities to monitor and respond to any disease outbreak.
Lantos pointed out that his congressional district includes the San Francisco International Airport, and that in 2004 alone, 3 million of the 32 million passengers in that airport had arrived from Asia. Each year California receives nearly 60 percent of the airline traffic from Asia to the United States.
"After the 9/11 tragedy, this country made the horrendous mistake of assuming that Laramie, Wyoming is as likely to be hit as New York or San Francisco," Lantos recalled. "We provided funding and made preparations on a nationwide basis, as if we were dealing with highway funds, disregarding the fact that some areas are dramatically more likely to be targets of terrorist attacks than others. We cannot make this same mistake again as our nation prepares to battle a potential avian flu pandemic. We have to concentrate on the most vulnerable places."
Lantos and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi will soon introduce a comprehensive avian flu bill that would dramatically scale up the nation's efforts to stop a potential pandemic at its roots and boost our government's ability to save lives in the United States.
http://lantos.house.gov/HoR/CA12/Newsroom/Press+Releases/2005/PR_051207_Avian_Flu.htm