Dear AMCA Member:
You have a Member of Congress critical in federal funding (Appropriations) decision-making. For years, AMCA has supported fully funding the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases to increase nationwide surveillance, testing, and control of mosquitoes. Recently, two pieces of legislation were authorized that will improve vector control capacity in the United States, the SMASH Act and the Kay Hagen TICK Act. Combined, these two laws will add jobs, research, supplies and technology that our profession desperately needs.
Congress is currently putting together supplemental funding packages to boost public health preparedness and response due to COVID-19. You have a unique opportunity to ask your Member of Congress to fund vector control provisions, so one public health crisis doesn’t exacerbate another problem. Please join us in urging action by Congress to fund and support the implementation of the SMASH and TICK Acts, recent public health preparedness measures enacted by Congress. We ask that you forward the attached letter (linked below) to your House and Senate Congressional representative by Monday, April 27th, requesting vital vector control funding resources as our nation continues to strengthen public health preparedness.
Please BCC, Karen Williams with McDermott, Will, and Emery (AMCA’s Representative in D.C.) so she can follow up with the appropriate offices.
Thank you for your timely response and let me know if you have any questions,
Gary Goodman
Federal Funding Subcommittee Chairman
Suggested email to Debbie Jessup for Congresswoman Roybal-Allard: debbie.jessup@mail.house.gov
email to Victor Yang for Congresswoman Lee victor.yang@mail.house.gov
with a bcc to Kmwilliams@mwe.com
Subject line: Stimulus Funding Request – Resources Needed to Safeguard Public Health from Mosquito and Vector-Borne Disease Threats
Dear Congresswoman Roybal-Allard or Congresswoman Lee,
The emergence and rapid spread of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases demonstrate that threats to public health are escalating. We have seen how a lack of preparedness for the Coronavirus pandemic has compromised our efforts to control it to date. Alarmingly, we are now heading into mosquito and tick vector season, whose disease transmission put those afflicted at higher risk of fatal outcomes from COVID-19 infection. To ensure these challenges can be effectively met, public health and vector-control professionals must be equipped with the resources and capacity necessary for the prevention, treatment, and control of vector-borne diseases.
The threat from mosquito-borne and other vector-borne diseases continues, and our nation’s limited existing capacity to respond to such threats demands action. Please fully fund and support the implementation of the SMASH and TICK Acts, recent public health preparedness measures enacted by Congress. Funding will ensure that state and local vector control agencies have the personal protective equipment, testing supplies, diagnostic equipment, personnel and control materials necessary to combat emerging public health threats.
I’ve attached a letter from the American Mosquito Control Association President. Please contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Your Name and Title
