By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Texas Republicans, including Tea Party-backed U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, sought to ratchet up the pressure on the Obama administration's Ebola response on Friday, by questioning its use of federal tax dollars for emergency preparedness.
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, the lawmakers said they were concerned about missteps in the Dallas Ebola case of Thomas Eric Duncan, which they said occurred after large sums of federal money were spent to help U.S. cities prepare for infectious diseases.
A spokesman for Burwell's Department of Health and Human Services said the department "values working with members of Congress on this important public health matter, and we look forward to responding to this letter."
The Oct. 30 letter, which was also signed by Texas Senator John Cornyn and two-dozen Texas Republicans from the U.S. House of Representatives, surfaced less than a week before the Nov. 4 election, in which Republicans have sought to use public fears about Ebola as a campaign device for capturing the Senate.
It also surfaced as Congress prepares to debate the possibility of new funding for the U.S. government's response to the largest ever Ebola outbreak, which has killed nearly 5,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Duncan, the first U.S. Ebola case, died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Oct. 8. Two of his nurses later became ill, raising public anxiety about the ability of health officials to deal with the virus and prompting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue a new protocol for protecting healthcare workers who treat Ebola patients.
"It is especially troubling to witness the federal government's communication missteps and confusion about protocols knowing that a wide range of federal resources have already been in place for years," the lawmakers wrote.
The Ebola issue has also ballooned into a national debate about whether to quarantine people entering the United States from West Africa, since Dr. Craig Spencer of New York City became infected after treating Ebola patients in the region.
The Obama administration is spending more than $1 billion on an initiative in West Africa involving up to 4,000 U.S. troops and an unknown number of doctors, nurses and other health workers. After the election, Congress is expected to examine funding proposals that would sustain the effort into 2015.
The Texas lawmakers, who said the federal government has spent nearly $9 billion on preparedness since 2002, asked Burwell for details of federal plans, policies and protocols involved in the Ebola response. They also sought information about the roles of administration officials including the White House's newly appointed Ebola response coordinator, Ron Klain.
"We must understand how years spent developing strategic plans and applying these significant resources failed to adequately prepare for dealing with Ebola," they said.
(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Grant McCool)