New hopes were raised that the US Senate will agree a deal today to raise the debt ceiling in time to avoid a default, ending the US shutdown. While many will breathe a sigh of relief at the news, for some – and especially the poor and the sick – the US shutdown has already done irreversible damage.
As the BBC pointed out, the US government shutdown has put drug trials on hold, which means that terminally ill children and adults haven’t been able to access the treatments that may be their only chance of survival.
This freeze on medical research also means that drug trials with animals have stalled, as The Atlantic has highlighted. This means that some experiments on potentially life-saving drugs targeting cancer, diabetes and Alzheimers will have to be started again, at great cost. Many of the mice being used in this research will die needlessly, too, because they will not be sufficiently monitored.
The shutdown has predictably hit the poor hardest. If the shutdown doesn’t end soon, almost 9 million women and children supported by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) could lose their entitlement to food stamps, formula milk and breastfeeding support. Some states like Louisiana have already said they cannot accept any new applicants to the programme, while Utah has closed its WIC offices.
Meanwhile, some states have had to close their Head Start programme, an early education, health and nutrition programme for young children from low income families. If the shutdown continues, more programmes will have to close, placing 19,000 vulnerable children at risk.
An ongoing US shutdown will also mean workers could suffer injuries as health and safety inspections have been halted since 1 October, and benefits like disability allowances, housing loans and energy assistance programmes could soon be halted.
If the shutdown does end today, the relief that an American default has been avoided shouldn’t be allowed to overshadow the shameful impact dysfunctional policymaking has had on America’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens.
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