CQ HealthBeat: More Burwell Budget Testimony; White House Summit Promotes Precision Medicine
“…Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell return[ed] to Capitol Hill [Thursday] to defend her department’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal. The House Appropriations panel responsible for the annual Labor-HHS spending bill will also likely hear an appeal for immediate action on current year supplemental appropriations funding a Zika virus response effort…” (2/25).

The Hill: Obama strikes optimistic tone in fight against Zika
“President Obama on Thursday expressed confidence about the nation’s ability to beat the Zika virus, striking a more optimistic tone than some of his own federal researchers. ‘We actually think there’s a promising pathway for diagnostics and vaccines on this,’ Obama said in a packed White House auditorium. ‘It’s not a real complicated virus, apparently.’ The main challenge ahead, Obama said, is how to ‘figure out a production cycle that makes sense’…” (Ferris, 2/25).