SLASHES TO CDC’S & NIH BUDGETS IMPEDES EBOLA RESEARCH & CONTROL
BARTON AND HOUSE HEALTH COMMITTEE WEAKENED HEALTH AGENCIES ABILITY TO RESPOND
Our nation is in an Ebola scare with a third confirmed case in the DFW Metroplex. Instead of constructive action to assist this nation with appropriate delivery of health services, Representative Joe Barton (R) is frantically trying to show that he is on top of things by staging photo ops at the DFW Airport!
Despite being in Congress for three decades and sitting on the House Health Committee, which oversees the CDC and NIH, Republican Joe Barton has done more to impede the delivery of health services in this nation and to delay development and trials of critical new infection control and therapeutic procedures, than he has done to actually improve our nation’s health delivery system.
Either by his misplaced priorities or his record of being absent for key votes, Congressman Barton’s failure to be vigilant in doing his job for the people of his district or the nation, has resulted in the reduction of the ability of governmental agencies to protect the American people.
As a member of the House Health Committee. Barton should be leading the House to ensure that it sets the right priorities, and funds initiatives, in time to prevent pandemics and the spread of infectious diseases. Instead, Barton has failed deplorably to do his job in Congress and on these oversight committees.
· Barton has voted repeatedly to reduce funding for the CDC and NIH.
· He has misled Congress in prioritizing the wrong critical health research and trials.
· Funding cuts have delayed the development and manufacture of vaccines for Ebola and other deadly diseases.
· Drug trials have been postponed, leaving physicians without knowledge of dangerous side effects for the only treatments available for Ebola.
Joe Barton and the GOP’s indiscriminate across the board budget cuts are like an assault on the health budget with a meat axe instead of a scalpel.
· Specifically, the CDC’s Emergency Preparedness Budget has been cut nearly in half since 2006 resulting in more than 45,700 job losses at state and local health departments since 2008.
· Funding for research and development of vaccines to combat Ebola was curtailed despite evidence the virus has been wiping out entire villages in Africa since the 1970s.
· The GOP’s emphasis on budget cutting, rather than ensuring that our nation is properly equipped to combat serious risks to the lives of our people, leaves our nation’s hospitals with outdated protocols and inadequate training.
Long-term incumbent Joe Barton has a habit of using legislative obstruction and wasteful governmental shut-downs to impede the solutions instead of solving the problems which confront our nation and endanger our people.
· Joe Barton was elected to go to Congress and solve problems for the people of this district.
· He hasn’t done it.
· On his watch, funding for the VA hospital system was cut when we had high number of injured soldiers returning home for war.
· Our service men and women have had to wait unacceptable lengths of time for the medical services that they deserve.
· It is irresponsible to appropriate funds to send men and women to war without appropriating funds to adequately care for them when they return home injured.
· Lax legislative oversight and inadequate funding, leaves our VA Hospital system ill-equipped to properly care for the current level of our veteran’s health needs, let alone prepared to absorb a significant number of additional patients with highly contagious diseases.
· On Barton’s watch, there has been more effort to impede the President and governmental agencies from doing their jobs than votes to equip them.
Mr. Barton does not escape accountability. I am David E. Cozad. I am calling him out. PR stunts during a health crisis is not problem solving. It is not governing. Send me to Washington. I’m the Democratic Nominee running for the US TX 6th District.
I, David E. Cozad, will show up to vote. I’ll vote for adequate funding to combat threats to health and safety of the American people and to equip us to face this and other health crisis. I will find a way to fund the research and training necessary to make the American health system the best in the world and to make the world safe for America. I’m the former Marine whose priority is keeping your family and my family safe.
David E. Cozad, Cozad for Congress Campaign Committee
Democratic Nominee for US Congress TX6
Media Contact: Faith Chatham
Telephone: 817 909-2360
cozadforcongress@gmail.com
www.cozadforcongress.org
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