Would you believe? The recession-hit country is spending people’s money on bats’ disease “white nose syndrome”. The country is going through its historic recession but has allocated $1.9 million on White Nose Syndrome.

The critics are highly disgruntled on this very move of the congress because of the current economic scenario comprising high unemployment rates, winding-up of companies. White nose syndrome has become an issue on which congress is being ridiculed by the public. The white nose syndrome which is a disease in bats is the focal point of the congress and the tax-payers’ money will be spent on curing the disease.

The critics are of the view that such allocation of funds might have had some sense if the eruption of disease could damage human beings like other viral diseases which had the origin from an animal e.g. AIDS is said to start from monkey-human interaction in Africa. They say if there is no such health emergency, why people’s money is spent on such futile projects.

Americans still have not controlled swine flu and now their apprehensions have diverted towards bats. But it does not mean the addressing of the issue of white nose syndrome by the congress is hilarious. Nobody can deny the effects of the disease on bats and even an indirect negative impact on human beings.

The white nose syndrome is the growth of fungus on the nose of bats due to which they can’t sleep well during the hibernation period and, consequently, become too weak to catch their prey e.g. mosquitoes, insects leading to increased population of these insects which may harm crops as well as human beings. But the issue is not whether the issue should be addressed or not. The real issue is: “whether the issue should be preferred on other issues?” Has government utilized all her funds on other issues like unemployment, miserable plight of poor and hungry people? The criticism carries a lot of weight.

White Nose Syndrome