Public health threatsThe politicization of U.S. handling Ebola may carry over to Zika
If the United States responds to Zika the way it did to Ebola — and early indications are that in many ways it is — the country can expect missteps brought about by a lack of health care coordination and a lot of political finger pointing, according to a new analysis. The researchers studied the U.S. response to Ebola and found a fragmented system with no clear leadership, and considerable “strategic politicization” due to the outbreak’s arrival during a midterm election year.
If the United States responds to Zika the way it did to Ebola — and early indications are that in many ways it is — the country can expect missteps brought about by a lack of health care coordination and a lot of political finger pointing, according to an analysis by the University of Michigan.
U-M says that Scott Greer of the U-M School of Public Health and colleagues studied the U.S. response to Ebola and found a fragmented system with no clear leadership, and considerable “strategic politicization” due to the outbreak’s arrival during a midterm election year.
Greer, associate professor of health management and policy, said the current administration’s difficulty getting funding for Zika in a presidential election year represents a bit of déjà vu, in terms of political posturing in the face of a major health threat.
“In 2016, you’re going to see intense politicizing of Zika. So don’t be surprised,” Greer said. “Republicans are going to continue not to give Obama the federal dollars he seeks to combat Zika. They don’t trust him. But when the virus starts to affect people anywhere south of Indianapolis there will be an elaborate game of blaming the administration for not doing it right.”
Similar criticism occurred during the Ebola outbreak, at which time the GOP — looking to gain a majority in the Senate — raised questions connecting Ebola to immigration and terrorism. Ebola became much more of an issue in the election for Republicans than for Democrats, and the Obama administration took it on the chin for the way it handled the situation, Greer and colleagues said.
This even translated into media coverage, they said, noting that the more conservative Fox News outpaced the more liberal MSNBC in coverage of Ebola leading up to the election (fourteen stories versus eleven per week), after which Fox stopped running news about it altogether, even while Americans were still being diagnosed.
MSNBC continued to give Ebola attention after the election. Further, Fox coverage included Republican commentators and politicians, and connections were made with immigration issues and foreign policy. The researchers said neither network covered Ebola prior to the U.S cases when it was only a problem in Africa.
