Centers for Disease Control & Prevention officially concluded that the Zika virus “is a cause of microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects. And, CDC Director Thomas H. Freiden said, the agency is “launching further studies to determine whether children who have microcephaly born to mothers infected by the Zika virus is the tip of the iceberg of what we could see in damaging effects on the brain and other developmental problems.”
At the same time, it is repeatedly calling on Congress for additional funding, accusing Congress of blocking some $1.8 billion. “We’re basically pulling money from anywhere we can,” including research on dengue and tick-borne diseases, “and there are serious trade-offs to that,” Freiden says.
Among those places CDC is “pulling money from:” work on Ebola, dengue, antibiotic resistance and tick-borne diseases. You’ll notice what’s not being mentioned: CDC’s alcohol program.
Our suggestion: Kill CDC’s alcohol program and use that money to fight Zika. That will do little, if any, damage to federal efforts to fight alcohol abuse, drunk driving and similar issues — because there are a bunch of other federal agencies that are focused on that area: National Institutes for Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism is the world’s leading scientific alcohol research agency. Center for Substance Abuse Treatment is focused on effective treatment. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention works every single day on prevention, as does the Transportation Department. The last time we looked, about half the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration‘s budget was devoted to drunk driving.
CDC’s contribution to alcohol research and treatment: Highly questionable “studies” that involve researchers posing as doctors in emergency rooms and other studies that attempt to link youth exposure to beer ads on TV and spirits ads in magazines. The problem, of course, is that alcohol issues involving youth keep going down, even as ad spending keeps going up.
To be sure, it’s unlikely CDC spends $1.8 billion a year on alcohol. We don’t know how much CDC spends on alcohol because, although we have repeatedly asked, it hasn’t told us. We suspect it is only a fraction of the money it says it needs to fight Zika. But still, killing the alcohol program would be a place to start.
Also in today’s issue:
- New York Panels Mulls Allowing Alcohol Sales Before Noon on Sunday
- Eastside Distilling 4Q Sales Soar 41% to $982,000, Loss Narrows
- Two Texas Distillers Combine
- Tomaresca Releases a New Wine
- Georges Duboeuf Invites Votes for Beaujolais Nouveau Label
- Moderate Drinking Guidelines Vary by Nation, Leading to Confusion
- Who & What–
- What We’re Reading
o How Patron Spirits CEO Picked Up a 2nd Job — Driving IndyCars
- F.Y.I.–
o GOP Voters: Kasich, Cruz — But Not Trump — Ready to Be President