US Zika funding shortfall will impede cancer research, health officials say

Senior public health officials said Congress’s months-late $ 800m-short Zika funding bill will seriously damage research budgets for heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Officials with the federal Health and Human Services Administration called on Congress to consider an emergency health fund for future emerging diseases, similar to the way natural disasters are funded.

“We had to use money we were going to spend within our own institute on malaria and tuberculosis,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci has headed up the development of vaccines for Zika. There are currently at least nine vaccines the National Institutes of Health is hoping to shepherd through early clinical trials.

Funds from, “cancer, heart disease, diabetes and mental health allowed us to prepare sites to do the phase two trial,” said Fauci. “None of that money is going to come back to us … We are going to be able to continue rather smoothly, but it comes at a significant cost.”

Zika is a primarily mosquito-borne disease first identified in Uganda in the 1940s. Initially, Zika was considered benign because symptoms were mild and only affected one in five infected people.

It was not until winter 2015 that the virus was considered a serious threat to human health, because of an astronomical rise in the rate of microcephaly cases in Brazil. Microcephaly is an uncommon birth defect where children are born with abnormally small heads and severe developmental problems.

The White House called for $ 1.9bn in Zika funding as early as February, but Congress was unable to pass a bill to fund efforts to combat the disease until late September. Earlier efforts were thwarted by so-called poison pills, such as riders that would have eliminated federal funding to Planned Parenthood and lifted a ban on Confederate flags in veterans’ cemeteries.

Now, local transmission is widespread in Puerto Rico, and has flared up in Miami. More than 25,000 cases have been reported nationally, including more than 2,000 cases in pregnant women. The disease has also continued to surprise scientists, who recently reported that Zika was spread through sweat or tears in Utah, and that the virus lingers in semen and saliva.

“We won’t be able to backfill for the cancer research we had to take from to keep things going,” said the health and human services secretary, Sylvia Burwell. “There was a reason we asked for the $ 1.9bn, and that was important uses of money.”

Officials said research into diagnostic tests and long-term impacts on children born to infected mothers of the disease were delayed because of congressional bickering.

Fauci called the congressional funding a “tried and true, but sometimes seriously delayed appropriations process”. He said that, “at least from our standpoint, [an emergency fund] is something that should be seriously considered.”

US Zika funding shortfall will impede cancer research, health officials say

No government ought to impede a doctor"s correct to care for sufferers | Nick Talley

I was born the son of an immigrant. My father was a individual in search of asylum from communist Hungary, hunting for refuge in a new nation – the lucky nation, Australia.

He as well was displaced, forced to move, required to modify to a new country. Fortunately, he wasn’t put in detention when he arrived. Right now, it appears a lot more like jail, the place folks are locked away although they wait to be “processed”.

I am also a doctor, and the president of the royal Australasian college of physicians. Our profession has a duty of care to all individuals in Australia. That our government ignores the fundamental human rights of refugees and asylum seekers distresses me, and it is conflicts with my expert dedication as a physician to serve the well being of our men and women.

So the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers is a individual issue for me. I really feel strongly from a healthcare viewpoint as a medical professional, a professional and as a representative of physicians’ interests. To disregard the appalling situations individuals searching for asylum are encountering would be shirking our obligations as a occupation. For us to fail to protest about this therapy would be wrong.

What ever your view of asylum seekers and refugees, all humans deserve the very same degree of care – health, training, psychological wellbeing and bodily health. Doctors conserve lives, heal the sick and work to prevent illness both physical and mental. If we can’t do this, we are failing in our obligations as medical professionals, and our government is failing to meet its human rights obligations.

In addition, no government need to impede a doctor’s proper to meet their duty of care. Nor must our specialist experience be ignored, or the genuine problems sidelined. I applaud these in our occupation who have spoken out, on bad accessibility to submit natal care, dental care, education and getting a secure spot for youngsters to play.

We need to have to adjust our recent policy, so it serves the interests of folks who have been displaced, and to meet our United Nations obligations. Young children are the most vulnerable and they require protection. The harm they are suffering in detention is unacceptable.

When we seem back in thirty many years on our behaviour, I am confident we will say this policy was a disgrace. The results of immigration detention on refugees’ health ought to outrage our nation. The question we ought to ask is this: how would you want your family members to be taken care of?

No government ought to impede a doctor"s correct to care for sufferers | Nick Talley