Health Affairs Blog: On Zika Preparedness And Response, The U.S. Gets A Failing Grade
Alexandra Phelan, adjunct professor and Sir John Monash scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, and Lawrence O. Gostin, professor and director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights, discuss the U.S. response to Zika, writing, “[A]s Zika looms as a serious threat to the homeland, and as science is proving that Zika causes grave harms to newborns, Congress continues to shut its eyes and close its pocket book. This is more than simply a public health issue, but also a matter of social justice threatening the poorest people in our country. Congress must not ignore the ethical and moral implications of its delay while federal, state, and local public health agencies struggle without the critical funding needed to protect the health of poor Americans” (4/28).