Stopping Zika one bucket at a time -- April 14, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Congressional Republicans are balking at President Barack Obama’s request for $1.9 billion in emergency funds to prevent and treat the Zika virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes. Why the reluctance?

“They haven’t been bitten yet,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.

Zing!

It’s politics as usual in Washington. Republicans said the administration should use already allocated funds, so Obama shifted $510 million from the fight against Ebola in West Africa and $79 million from diseases like malaria and tuberculosis to Zika.

But that’s not enough, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, who’s holding out for the full $1.9 billion.

“I’m not an alarmist,” Fauci told reporters Monday, “but the more we learn about the neurological aspects (of Zika), the more we look around and say, `This is very serious.’”

The nation’s top docs say the Zika threat is “scarier” than initially thought. Zika causes severe birth defects in newborns and is linked in adults to Guillain-Barre syndrome, an immune system disorder, said the Centers for Disease Control.

So far, no mosquitoes have transmitted the virus in the United States, although officials say that could change this summer.  

The 346 Zika cases reported in 40 states are all travel-related. Florida has the most with 85 cases. In Virginia, nine cases have been reported. Tennessee has had two cases, and Alabama, one.

In Puerto Rico, where mosquitoes are spreading the virus, hundreds of thousands of cases are expected this year. The government is distributing Zika prevention kits there and in other hard-hit areas.

There’s hope for a vaccine, with trials possibly starting in September. Obama is expected to sign into law a measure providing incentives to pharmaceutical companies to develop Zika treatments.

Once again, though, neither the White House nor Congress has thought to enlist ordinary Americans in fighting the threat. After 9/11 when the government mobilized for the war on terror, leaders asked nothing of most people. About 1 percent of Americans volunteered for war; the rest were told to go shopping. 

With Zika, the government is asking women who are pregnant or plan to be not to travel to affected areas.

But if we ever we needed a common enemy to draw us together, it’s now. Americans may be poles apart politically, but it’s safe to say nobody likes mosquitoes. Even before Zika, mosquitoes brought us West Nile Virus, and still do. To them, we’re just a meal.

Officials say Aedes aegypti, a.k.a. yellow fever mosquito, is most likely to transmit Zika. It has been found in 30 states, including throughout the Southeast. Until its tie with Zika, this mosquito was known for causing more casualties in the Spanish-American War than combat.

So, what’s a patriot to do in the undeclared war on mosquitoes? I stopped by the Arlington County (Va.) Cooperative Extension Service office and learned more about mosquitoes than I knew to ask.

For example, only the female mosquito bites. She needs a blood meal to lay eggs. The Aedes aegypti deposits hundreds of them on wet container walls or near standing water. Even if the surface is dry, the eggs can hang on for months. When water reappears, they hatch and grow to full-grown in a week.

Chemical insecticides often kill the beneficial insects along with the pests and can be bad for pets and pond fish. So, before you hire an exterminator, have a “dump the bucket” party in your neighborhood. Empty cans, flower pots and birdbaths weekly.

Get rid of old tires. Put goldfish in your pond to eat mosquito larvae or use larvicide donuts. Check gutters and downspouts to be sure they are free flowing and don’t hold water. Repair window screens.

When possible, wear long sleeves and long pants. Use products containing DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus on exposed skin – but not under clothes. Follow the label instructions.

And listen to Mikulski: “The mosquitoes are coming. You can’t build a wall to keep them out, and the mosquitoes can’t pay for it.”

But we can join our neighbors and dump the bucket. Early and often.

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Women in Congress are no fad -- Nov. 21, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

For most of the last century, no more than two women served at the same time in the U.S. Senate.

In the 1980s, women House members were not allowed in the House gym.

After the 1992 election, headline writers broke out the phrase Year of the Woman to describe the vast crowd of women coming to the Senate – six. The phrase annoyed at least one senator.

 “Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., complained at the time. “We’re not a fad, a fancy, or a year.”

Women weren’t a fad, but they’re still a distinct minority in Congress. In January, 20 women will serve in the Senate, 16 Democrats and four Republicans. One in five -- that’s the most women ever in the Senate.

In the House, there will be a record 78 women, about 18 percent of the members. Fifty-eight are Democrats, 20 Republicans. At least three of the new women in the House are in their 30s.

For the first time, women and minorities will outnumber white men among Democrats in the House. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., celebrated the Democratic caucus milestone, saying it would be “the first caucus in the history of civilized government to have a majority of women and minorities.”

That’s impressive, but it’s unclear how having more women and minorities in Congress will affect policy. Republicans still control the House, and the Republican caucus is dominated by white men. Their goal is to shrink the size of government and cut entitlements.  

 In earlier times, women in Congress worked to avoid being pigeon-holed as interested in “women’s” issues. In fact, when the Women’s Caucus was formed in the House in 1977, “it met with considerable resistance even among women members,” according to a history on the House clerk’s Web page.  

Political scientists who have studied women in elective office are divided on whether women have different legislative priorities than men. While some studies find women more likely to support certain family and workplace issues, other studies find no trend.   

 For one thing, there’s been a blurring of what women’s issues are. Plus, family-work balance, pay equity, education and health care mean different things to different people, whether men or women. Someone’s political party can be more predictive of his or her stand than gender.    

While some Republican women in Congress supported certain benefits in the health care overhaul -- such as not allowing health insurance companies to charge women higher premiums than men -- not one Republican, man or woman, voted for final passage of the Affordable Care Act.

“Based on my experience, just because you’re an elected official and a woman, that doesn’t mean you’re going to vote” for women’s issues, Rep. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., says in Madeleine M. Kunin’s “The New Feminist Agenda,” published in April.

As the title suggests, Kunin, who was the first woman governor of Vermont and served as ambassador to Switzerland, is calling for another social revolution ‘’not for the benefit of women alone,” she says, “but for the sake of the family.” 

She argues that while women have made great progress in the workplace, the country needs social policies that support families. The United States is the only country in the developed world that fails to offer paid maternity leave or paid sick leave.

A poll of international gender specialists in June ranked the United States the sixth-best country for women -- behind Canada, Germany, Britain, Australia and France. In France, new mothers get 16 weeks of maternity leave at full pay.

The panel, which looked at the G20 developed countries, cited poor access to health care and the debate over reproductive rights for the U.S. rank, the poll by TrustLaw, a legal news service run by Thompson Reuters Foundation, reported.  

We’re No. 6? That doesn’t sound right. It’s time for women and men in Congress to support working parents and stand up for families.   

No worries about the Year of the Woman or asparagus. Call it the Year of All of Us.  

 ©2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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