Subsequent Events On February 8, 2006, Presi-
dent George W. Bush signed the Deficit Reduction
Act of 2005 reauthorizing TANF through Septem-
ber, 2010.
Further Reading
Caputo, Richard K. “Working and Poor: A Study of
Maturing Adults in the U.S.”Families in Society88,
no. 3 (July-September, 2007): 351-359. Shows that
a majority of poor persons work and discusses the
merits of poverty-reduction efforts aimed at en-
hancing the income of the working poor.
Danziger, Sandra, Mary Corcoran, Sheldon Danziger,
and Colleen Heflin. “Work, Income, and Marital
Hardship After Welfare Reform.”Journal of Con-
sumer Affairs34, no. 1 (Summer, 2000): 6-30.
Shows that increased work effort resulted in in-
creased income but also that many TANF recipi-
ents nonetheless remained poor and faced other
hardships.
Mead, Lawrence M., and Christopher Beem, eds.
Welfare Reform and Political Theor y. New York: Rus-
sell Sage Foundation, 2005. Contributors discuss
need, citizenship, virtue, responsibility, and ex-
ploitation in the light of welfare reform.
Mink, Gwendolyn, and Rickie Solinger, eds.Welfare:
A Documentar y Histor y of U.S. Policy and Politics.
New York: New York University Press, 2003. Ex-
cerpts from key documents marking the develop-
ment of U.S. welfare policy in the twentieth cen-
tury.
Richard K. Caputo
See also Balanced Budget Act of 1997; Clinton,
Bill; Employment in the United States; Health care
reform; Illegal immigration; Income and wages in
the United States; Marriage and divorce; Minimum
wage increases; Poverty; Race relations; Social Secu-
rity reform.
West Nile virus outbreak
The Event The first known cases of West Nile
virus in North America are diagnosed
Date August, 1999
Place New York City
First identified in 1937 in Uganda, West Nile virus was
unknown in the Western Hemisphere until 1999. Since
then, the virus has spread across North America, Central
America, and the Caribbean. West Nile virus is transmitted
by the bite of infected mosquitoes and may result in encepha-
litis or meningitis. There is no specific treatment for the
virus.West Nile virus was identified in North America in
August, 1999. Previously, the disease was known only
in North Africa, the Middle East, and portions of
central Europe. During August, 1999, veterinarians
at the Bronx Zoo in New York became worried when
two dozen domestic and exotic birds began exhibit-
ing erratic behaviors. At the same time in Queens,
New York, several elderly patients contracted high
fevers, headaches, muscle fatigue, and neurological
symptoms that progressed into comas. Within days,
neighboring hospitals admitted several more pa-
tients with similar symptoms. All the patients lived
in the areas of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park,
mosquito-infested marshy wetlands adjacent to
Long Island Sound. Initial diagnoses suggested that
the patients were suffering from St. Louis encephali-
tis, a mosquito-borne disease associated with the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
The city of New York immediately began a large-
scale aerial and ground mosquito-abatement cam-
paign using the pesticide malathion and distributed
300,000 containers of DEET insect repellant to city
employees. When the Bronx Zoo birds died, tissue
samples were sent to the U.S. Department of Agri-
culture, the Centers for Disease Control and Preven-
tion (CDC), and the U.S. Army germ laboratory at
Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Army laboratory deter-
mined that the virus from the dead birds and in-
fected humans was West Nile virus. During the same
week, a mysterious disease infected eighteen horses
on thirteen different farms around North Fork,
Long Island. Ten horses died from the disease.
When tests were performed on surviving horses in
the area, 25 percent tested positive for West Nile vi-
rus. During late 1999, 270,000 equines were tested
for West Nile virus in New York, Connecticut, and
Maryland; none tested positive but those around
North Fork: the bird and human outbreak of the vi-
rus occurred seventy-five miles farther west in New
York City.
There is no consensus on how West Nile virus
found its way to North America. Theories about the
virus’s arrival to New York include an infected mos-
quito, smuggled bird, or infected passenger arriving
by airplane from the Middle East; a bird carrying the912 West Nile virus outbreak The Nineties in America