Republican Senator Richard Burr slams US monkeypox response

14 July 2022 - 07:15 By Madison Muller
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Burr came under fire early in the Covid-19 pandemic after audio obtained by National Public Radio suggested he privately warned well-connected constituents about how dire the situation was while downplaying the risk of Covid in public.
Burr came under fire early in the Covid-19 pandemic after audio obtained by National Public Radio suggested he privately warned well-connected constituents about how dire the situation was while downplaying the risk of Covid in public.
Image: Bloomberg

A fierce critic of the US Covid-19 strategy, Republican Senator Richard Burr condemned the Biden administration’s response to the outbreak of monkeypox virus and called again for the creation of a new government office to deal specifically with pandemics.

“The US is once again significantly behind the curve, failing to learn from the devastating effects of Covid-19, and other recent infectious disease threats, like Ebola and Zika,” Burr said Wednesday in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra that was obtained by Bloomberg.

Burr led Republicans in criticising the White House’s request for additional funds for vaccines and therapies against the pandemic, which continues to kill hundreds of Americans. 

Spread mainly via close contact with an infected person, monkeypox has infected more than 900 people in the US, most of them men who have sex with men. There have been no reported deaths. The three-term North Carolina senator called the US response to monkeypox, “a threat to public health, and especially for gay and bisexual men who are at highest risk.”

Federal officials assured Americans that the country was prepared with vaccines, antivirals and testing capacity to handle monkeypox, yet recent weeks have shown cracks in its defences. Early testing bottlenecks risked missing the virus’s wide spread, and limited supplies have put pressure on the country’s vaccination strategy in cities like New York, where a registration site shut down amid fierce demand.

The ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Burr has sparred with leaders of the CDC, National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration during hearings on Covid-19, and has said the agencies “failed to lead as it relates to monkeypox.”

In the letter, he urged HHS to develop a research plan to better understand how the current monkeypox outbreak differs from its appearance in countries where it is established, such as those in Central and Western Africa. He also criticised the administration for only recently involving commercial laboratories in testing and its slow deployment of monkeypox vaccines from the Strategic National Stockpile.

The letter touted the HELP Committee’s bipartisan Prevent Pandemics Act, which would establish an Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy within the White House to help strengthen “the nation’s public health and medical preparedness and response systems.” 

Burr came under fire early in the Covid-19 pandemic after audio obtained by National Public Radio suggested he privately warned well-connected constituents about how dire the situation was while downplaying the risk of Covid-19 in public. He was also investigated, and eventually cleared, for stock sales made just before the onset of the pandemic.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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