u.s. health officials have determined beinginfected with the zika virus during pregnancy causes birth defects in babies.bruce harrison joins me now in the studio. bruce, there was already strong evidence thevirus caused developmental problems in babies... how does this announcement change the wayhealth officials look at the problem? connyoung, some experts are calling it a game-changerin terms of refocusing efforts on stopping infections. the director of the centers fordisease control and prevention says there's no doubt now zika causes microcephaly,...which is a birth defect marked by a small head size and underdeveloped brain. earlier this week... the u.s. congress sentpresident barack obama a bill,... and he says
he'll sign it... though its insufficient tofight the virus. the white house called it a "small step,"and the cdc's announcement should make it harder now for congress to deny funding publichealth officials say they need to combat zika's spread. u.s. health officials warned monday that thevirus seems to be "scarier" than they thought. and the white house's main criticism of lawmakers'bill -- it doesn't contain any direct funding. "...you may be familiar with the expressionof being 'a day late and a dollar short' --- in this case, congress is two months late and$1.9 billion dollars short..." in february, the world health organizationdeclared zika a global health emergency over
its suspected link to thousands of cases ofmicrocephaly in brazil. brazil says it's confirmed more than one-thousand-100cases and believes most are related to zika infections in the mothers.the cdc now believes microcephaly is just one of a number of serious birth defects causedby zika... and researchers want to discover the full range of brain and developmentalissues that infected babies may encounter later in life.
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