Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am waiting on Senator Reid, who will be coming here to make a motion with regard to the Zika crisis. While we have a moment, I want to set the table. Can you imagine being a pregnant woman in the southern part of the United States this summer in a poor county that does not have the funds for mosquito control? That pregnant woman knows that if she gets bitten by the aegypti mosquito carrying the Zika virus, there is a good chance the virus is going to infect the baby in her womb and could have consequences, all of which we have seen in these very disturbing photos of children born with deformed heads. As a matter of fact, the doctors in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tell us that the baby can be born with no abnormalities but the abnormalities appear later in the child's development after birth. Can you imagine being a pregnant woman in the southern part of the United States in a poor county--a poor county such as counties in the State of the Presiding Officer--that doesn't have the funds for mosquito control? What about a rich county that has run out of funds budgeted for mosquito control? If you are going to control the Zika virus, you either have to have a vaccine, which they are working on, or you have to be able to stop the mosquito from being able to reproduce. They are working on genetic alterations, but both of those take time. In the meantime, there is only one thing to do.”