FRESNO, Calif. – During his time in Congress, Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy helped introduce bills and appropriate funds to bolster disease research and outreach on valley fever.
One of his final acts in Congress was co-sponsoring the FORWARD Act, which aims to authorize as much as $500 million for developing a vaccine and treatments for the fungal disease.
But McCarthy’s retirement from national politics also means awareness of the disease is losing a critical voice, according to health experts in the San Joaquin Valley.
People develop valley fever by inhaling spores that grow in soil and become airborne by activities like construction, farming and even wildfires. Most who acquire the infection are asymptomatic, but moderate cases can resemble flu or pneumonia. The most severe cases, in which the infection spreads beyond the lungs and into other organs, can lead to serious health complications and require lifelong treatment.
More than 7,000 California residents contracted valley fever in 2023. Nearly one-third of those live in Kern County.
Because valley fever occurs primarily in Central California, Arizona and other arid parts of the southwest, it’s considered rare. As a result, for decades the fungal disease received little attention from the medical and research communities outside of the Valley.
Indeed, “there was almost no money being spent on valley fever from any source,” said Dr. Royce Johnson, Medical Director of the Valley Fever Institute in Bakersfield.
That changed in 2013, Johnson said, when McCarthy co-founded the Congressional Valley Fever Task Force andconvened the first-ever valley fever symposium in Bakersfield.
“He had Tom Friedman, who was head of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], and Francis Collins, head of the [National Institutes of Health], and he brought our cause to the attention [of]…what I call the East Coast elite,” Johnson said.
Johnson acknowledges it’s impossible to point to what exactly changed the tide on valley fever awareness, but he adds that it has since been easier to attract research funding for the disease, and to educate doctors on its signs and symptoms.
As campaigns get underway to fill McCarthy’s seat in Congress, Johnson said he hopes furthering research and attention on the disease is a priority for whoever takes over the 20th Congressional District.
“Probably most of the people that are going to run for McCarthy's seat in either party either already know about valley fever or will,” Johnson said, “ And if they don't, we'll see to it that they do learn about it.”
McCarthy, of course, wasn’t the only lawmaker to take up the valley fever cause.
Fifteen members of Congress remain on a Congressional Valley Fever Task Force, including Arizona Congressman David Schweikert – who serves as chair and co-founded the group with McCarthy – as well as local representatives David Valadao, Jim Costa and John Duarte.
Speaking on the House floor during McCarthy’s last day in Congress, Valadao acknowledged the Congressman’s contributions to valley fever awareness and other issues that are top of mind to Valley residents.
“We’ve got so much we need to still do, and the reality that he’s not going to be there is a huge hole for us in the Valley,” Valadao said.
