WASHINGTON, October 16 (RIA Novosti) - The US response to the Ebola epidemic has been hampered by the lack of funding provided by Congress to agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Henry Waxman told RIA Novosti Thursday.
"What I find troublesome is the members of Congress who say we need to do more, we've got to be tough. These are some of the same people who cut the funding for NIH, who cut the funding for the Center for Disease Control, which have hampered those agencies from dealing with this epidemic and future epidemics," Waxman said following a House hearing on the US response to the Ebola virus.
"I hope we would raise the funding for the Center for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration. Those are the agencies that are placed to protect the public health and we shouldn't short change those efforts," Waxman added when asked about the possibility of measures going into effect during the remainder of the congressional session, which ends in December.
During the hearing, Waxman cited the declining funds that Congress authorized for research and public health programs. He stated that since 2006 the CDC budget has been cut by 12 percent, while the funding for the CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness program, equipping state and local health departments to respond to health emergencies has been cut by $1 billion to $612 million in 2014.
When asked by RIA Novosti whether anything would be done during the upcoming lame duck session of Congress to deal with the Ebola outbreak, Waxman said that "if we need legislation on Ebola, I don't think there would be any problem on a bipartisan basis."
