LGBTQ+ Organizations Call on Congress to Urgently Approve Increased Funding to Address the Monkeypox Crisis
In response to the nationwide MPX (monkeypox) public health emergency, President Biden requested that Congress allocate $4.5 billion in emergency funding, including $1.6 billion to strengthen vaccine manufacturing and hundreds of millions more to support state and local testing, vaccination, and treatment efforts. Congress heinously chose not to include this funding in a Continuing Resolution, endangering the lives of LGBTQ+ people across the country. As the outbreak continues to disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ communities and, more specifically, Black and Latinx individuals, Congress has failed to allocate one cent in response. As a result, states, local health departments, and community-based organizations have effectively been abandoned at this crucial point in the outbreak.
“The failure of Congress to respond with the urgency and funding necessary to prevent the physical and emotional suffering felt by the LGBTQ+ community is beyond disappointing. Despite the declaration of human monkeypox as a federal public health emergency, there are still too many members of Congress who do not care about our communities,” said Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Joe Hollendoner. “What’s most appalling is that the COVID response has provided us with lessons on how to properly manage a public health crisis. Still, the lessons learned to prevent an outbreak from becoming a pandemic are not being used for the LGBTQ+ community.”
“We’re at a key inflection point where we can prevent MPX from spreading to the general population,” stated Jim Mangia, CEO of St. John’s Community Health. “If Congress fails to appropriately fund this effort, they will be responsible for creating the environment for another public health crisis— fresh on the heels of the COVID pandemic. We implore Congress to act.”
“We are dismayed to learn that critically-needed funding to address the continuing MPX public health crisis was not included in the Continuing Resolution,” said Tyler TerMeer, PhD, CEO of San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “San Francisco continues to see the harmful effects of this entirely preventable infection on members of our community—harm that is only exacerbated by the lack of a coordinated and consistent response at the federal level. We continue to call on our leaders in government to address MPX with the long overdue funding and resources we need to end this public health emergency.”
Congress’ failure to fund the nation’s response to the MPX outbreak tells us they learned nothing from HIV/AIDS, COVID, or the nation’s out-of-control STD epidemic,” said APLA Health CEO Craig E. Thompson. “All these public health disasters, all of the deaths, and all of the disease could have been reduced with some political courage and up-front funding to address emerging pandemics. Congress failed before; they have failed again. Congress must act. Their failure is not just reprehensible; it will cost us more in human suffering and higher health care costs in the long run.”
Our organizations urge Congress to approve increased funding through the regular or supplemental appropriations process to meaningfully address the MPX outbreak and the needs of impacted communities.